Developers flatten a British-era World War I memorial near Kuri Road in Islamabad, raising fresh concerns over the protection of heritage sites in the federal capital.
A British-era World War I memorial on the outskirts of Islamabad has been demolished by developers, triggering alarm among heritage officials and citizens over the loss of a historic landmark that helped shape the character of the federal capital’s rural fringe.
Until last Sunday, the monument stood on top of a mound roughly 40 feet high along Kuri Road near Rehara village. The surrounding land had already been cleared and levelled as part of plans to establish a commercial area for a new housing society, but authorities had previously intervened to stop the memorial itself from being moved.
Historic WWI Memorial Leveled for New Housing Scheme
Officials from the Department of Archaeology and Museums (DOAM) who visited the site on Tuesday found that the mound had been flattened and the memorial dismantled. Photographs taken by the department show blocks from the structure scattered across freshly levelled ground, with no trace of the original elevated setting that once made the monument visible from a distance.
According to officials, developers working on a new housing project in the area proceeded with earthworks and commercial plotting around the site in recent months. Despite earlier instructions to preserve the monument in its original location, the structure was ultimately removed as part of efforts to create a uniform, buildable landscape for the scheme.
Heritage advocates say the demolition reflects a wider pattern in which historic structures are seen as obstacles to real estate development rather than assets that can add character, identity and long-term value to new communities. They warn that without stronger legal protection and active enforcement, other lesser-known sites could face a similar fate.
A Tribute to Local Soldiers Who Fought in World War I
The British Empire erected the monument after the outbreak of World War I in 1914 to honour local soldiers from the area who served in the conflict. The memorial bore testimony to the involvement and sacrifices of men from nearby villages, including Rehara, who were recruited into the colonial army and sent to distant battlefields.
For decades, the structure stood as a reminder of a difficult chapter in regional history, linking present-day residents to the stories of families whose members fought and, in some cases, died in a war far from home. Its placement on a high mound at the edge of the village gave it a quiet prominence in the landscape.
Local residents and historians say the loss of the monument is not just physical but symbolic. Removing the structure and flattening the mound breaks a visible connection between the community and its past, and erases a rare example of early twentieth-century commemorative architecture in the Islamabad region.
CDA’s Plan to Shift the Monument to a Roundabout
Six months ago, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) and a private housing scheme approached the Department of Archaeology and Museums to seek a no-objection certificate (NOC) for relocating the memorial. Under the proposal, the structure would have been shifted about 100 metres from its original spot to a new roundabout planned as part of the development.
In its correspondence, the CDA said the roundabout would be named after the memorial to preserve its identity and visibility, arguing that the move would allow development to proceed while keeping the monument within the new urban layout. The plan was presented as a compromise between heritage preservation and real estate expansion.
Critics, however, pointed out that such relocations often strip monuments of their historical context. A structure built to overlook villages and fields, they argued, cannot be simply transplanted into a traffic circle without losing the meaning tied to its original setting and the communities it commemorated.
Archaeology Department Warned Against Relocation
The Department of Archaeology and Museums rejected the NOC request, stating that moving the memorial would undermine its historical purpose and the relationship it held with the surrounding villages. Officials stressed that the monument’s value was not only in its physical form but also in its location, orientation and connection to the landscape.
DOAM officers formally instructed the relevant authorities to keep the structure in place and to ensure it was protected during nearby construction. The demolition now suggests that those instructions were either disregarded or not effectively enforced, raising questions about oversight and accountability in heritage management.
Heritage experts say the incident underlines the need for clearer rules on integrating historic sites into master plans for new housing schemes, as well as stronger penalties for unauthorised alterations. Without such safeguards, they warn, Islamabad risks losing irreplaceable pieces of its layered history to short-term commercial pressures.
