ET: LAHORE: Since 1981, a small 400-square foot house comprising two rooms in Mohalla Dawood Nagar in Jhang tehsil has been designated a ‘national monument’. This is the house where Pakistan’s first Nobel Laureate in Physics Dr Mohammad Abdus Salam was born in 1926.
Today marks what would have been Dr Salam’s 89th birthday. However, the house will remain quiet today as its former resident’s birth anniversary will pass by unnoticed by many in the country. “There have never been any commemorative ceremonies for Dr Salam at this house as long as I have lived here,” said one neighbour Nadeem. A signboard outside the house informs that it is a protected property under the Antiquities Act 1975.
Nadeem says the outer wall of the house fell in some time ago, and was repaired by neighbours before the Archaeology Department took the property into its custody and deputed a caretaker for the site. The keys to the house remain with another neighbour, Yasir, who opens the house for the occasional visitor. The caretaker reportedly visits once or twice a month.
“We do not have any plans for repairs or maintenance works for the house in the near future,” Archeology Department Deputy Director Maqsood Ahmed told The Express Tribune. He said the government has deputed two caretakers.
Dr Abdus Salam’s father was an official in the Department of Education in this farming district. According to the Nobel Prize committee, when Dr Salam “cycled home from Lahore, at the age of 14, after gaining the highest marks ever recorded for the Matriculation Examination at the University of Punjab, the whole town turned out to welcome him.”
Categories: Ahmadis And Pakistan, Answers to Anti-Islam, Asia, Pakistan
Dr Abdus Salam grew up in this house in Jhang, i have visited this house. He was born in Santok Das, sahiwal.