Protest over mysterious chopping of 'Allah Rakha' in Lahore.

LAHORE -- Allah Rakha, around an eight-decade-old banyan tree, along with other trees on the campus of Government Associates College, Lake Road, was chopped down on Saturday.

According to legend, the banyan tree was named by Maulana Abdul Haq Abbas, the founder of Anjuman Madrasatul Banat, which has managed a number of educational institutions from the pre-Partition era, when he relocated here from India in August 1947 with a busload of students from Jalandhar.He found a small sampling of pilkhan tree (banyan family) badly damaged during looting and burning, which also damaged the nearby building and the furniture lying there, says Anjuman's president Dr Amin U Khan, also a grandson of Maulana Abbas.

He says Maulana Abbas tried to restore the tree and put a brick fence around it with the help of students praying, if the sampling survived, they would call it Allah Rakha.

The tree not only survived, but also grew to have girths of more than three meters and a crown diameter of around ten meters. It was providing shelter to about 350 house sparrows, which were counted every year by the Good Citizens Society...