Bricks from India for house in Pak

Pak ex-judge built a house in Lahore with bricks and soil from Punjab village

A sense of bonding and longing for his fathers motherland has led a retired judge of Pakistan Supreme Court to use soil and bricks from a Punjab village into making his house in Lahore.

Justice Ramday,son of retired judge of a Pakistan High Court,said this during his visit to India for inauguration of an auditorium dedicated to his father at Doaba Arya Senior Secondary School in Nawanshahr in Punjab.

He inaugurated the auditorium,which was funded by his family,on October 18.

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There was a house of my ancestors in Karyam village of Nawanshahr district where my father had spent his childhood. He studied in the school in 1919 and rose to the post of judge in the High Court, Justice Ramday said.

After my fathers death,I came to India in March 2005 and took bricks and soil from the remains of my ancestral house in Karyam village and from Jalandhar,the ancestral house of my wife,and used that in my house in Lahore, he said.

During his visit in 2005 along with 42 members of his family,Justice Ramday laid the foundation of the auditorium,but due to internal problems in Pakistan followed by his house arrest the project got delayed,he said.

I find India as my second home. I have received enough respect here,Guru Nanak Dev University has honoured me with an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, Justice Ramday said.

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My father always used to say that he had to travel to Jalandhar (around 60 kms away from Nawanshahr) for studies,which many were not able to do. In 1911,the Arya Samaj built the school and my father studied there in 1919 and rose to the post of judge in the High Court, he said.

The Vice-Chancellor of Gurukul Kangri University,Haridwar,Swatantra Kumar,who was present with Justice Ramday,said that Ramday had helped the university procure documents related to the case hearing of Shaheed Bhagat Singh.