Pakistan: Government of Sindh gives land to religious sisters
October 04, 2012: The provincial government of Pakistan’s Sindh region has presented
land in Karachi to religious sisters in appreciation of their educational work in
the country. Governor Ishrat ul Ebad of Sindh presented the 99-year lease papers for
1.5 acres of land to the Jesus and Mary Sisters during a ceremony on 24 September
at Government House, Karachi. Sisters Mary Langan and Berchmanns Conway received the
papers on behalf of the sisters.
The land is in central Karachi and has been
given by the government as a free gift in recognition of the educational work of the
Jesus and Mary Sisters in Pakistan. It will enable them to expand and consolidate
the school for girls they have run in Karachi since 1952.
The Jesus and Mary
Sisters arrived in what is now Pakistan in 1856 and now conduct schools in Lahore,
Karachi, Islamabad, Mariakhel, Murree and Toba Tek Singh. The former prime minister
Benazir Bhutto, Asma Jehangir - president of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan,
and H.E. Tehmina Janjua, present ambassador of Pakistan to Italy, are past students
of Jesus and Mary schools. Sr Berchmanns was decorated this year by the Pakistani
government for her services to education and Sr Mary Langan will be similarly honoured
on Pakistan Day in 2013.
Governor Ishrat ul Ebad and the government of Sindh
have made significant gestures of appreciation and support for the work of the Catholic
Church in Pakistan. Three Catholic hospitals in Sindh have been exempted from property
tax. The government is in the process of granting tax exemption to forty schools which
are run by the diocese of Hyderabad in economically-depressed urban areas and in the
Thar desert for tribal peoples. He recently presided over a ceremony at Government
House on 31 August during which 30 Parkari Koli tribal families who lost everything
during the recent floods received the deeds to four acres of land and new permanent
houses constructed as part of the medical and relief outreach work of St. Elizabeth
Hospital, Hyderabad.
During the 24 September ceremony, the governor emphasized
that the narrow exclusive fundamentalist attitude held by some sects and politico-religious
organizations in Pakistan is not the inclusive ideology and vision of the founder
of the nation, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Praising the role and presence of the Catholic
Church as an integral part of Pakistani society, the governor quoted the first message
Jinnah gave to the nation on 15 August 1947: “The creation of the new State has placed
a tremendous responsibility on the citizens of Pakistan. It gives them an opportunity
to demonstrate to the world how a nation, containing many elements, can live in peace
and amity and work for the betterment of all its citizens, irrespective of caste or
creed.”