MULTAN-Although the body of the boy, who dug a tunnel in search for a hidden treasure, was finally found after a three-day long operation by Rescue 1122, many others are likely to lose their lives in hunt for the treasure if immediate action is not taken to stop this practice.
Operation was underway till filing of this report to bring out the body of the deceased Zeeshan, only brother of two sisters. Zeeshan dug about 50-feet long tunnel underneath his one-marla house in Bagh Vehra area of Delhi Gate on a tip-off given to him by a fake aamil (spiritual healer) to locate the treasure but got buried alive under the soil as some portion of the tunnel collapsed.
Despite having seen the tragedy faced by Zeeshan, the residents of walled city do not seem to have learnt any lesson. “Many residents of walled city area are still looking for any aamil who can locate the spot underneath or inside their houses where treasure is hidden. They believe that the migrant Hindus had buried precious treasures before leaving for India,” said Azeem Khan, a resident of walled city area while talking to this scribe. He claimed that the digging and hunt to locate hidden treasure was still underway in many areas of walled city like Hannu ka Chajja. “A very old house of a friend of mine collapsed in Hannu ka Chajja a few days back. Now his entire family is desperate to find an aamil so that they can locate the treasure they believe is hidden underneath their house,” he added.
It may not be out of place to mention here that majority of houses and buildings were vacated by the Hindu and Sikh migrants at the time of partition and a strong myth circulates among the occupants of these houses that the migrants hid treasures in these houses before leaving for India.
The residents of walled city are being befooled by the fake aamils on the issue of hidden treasure since long. It is learnt that many residents of the area were contacted by the alleged aamils themselves, telling that treasure was hidden underneath their houses. “They tell the owner of the house that the hidden treasure can be brought out through an amal. The fake aamil receives compensation in terms of money and black goats and begins amal while on the other hand residents start digging,” revealed Mehran Qureshi, a resident of Hannu ka Chajja. He added that when the residents could not find anything, the fake aamils used to claim that the genies had moved the treasure to more depths.  “The aamils receive more money from the residents under the pretext that they are going to launch another round of amal for the recovery of treasure. The poor inmates keep digging while the aamils flee,” he further disclosed.
The residents of Bagh Vehra area told this scribe that the boy Zeeshan and his father Noor Alam Qureshi carried out the same operation two years back but the neighbours lodged a complaint against them and police forced them to stop digging. “They were strictly directed by police not to dig the tunnel again, but they did it again and faced the tragedy,” neighbours added.