By Taimoor khan :
The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has completed an inquiry into the disappearance and alleged sale of a significant archive consisting of three truckloads of colonial-era records from the Directorate of Archives and Public Libraries. The inquiry report recommends referring the matter to police or anti-corruption authorities for further investigation and forming a committee comprising focal persons from relevant departments.
According to available documents, on February 12, 2002, the then-Governor of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) ordered the preservation of the “Commissionary Record” related to the Peshawar Division, which included Swabi, Peshawar, Charsadda, Mardan, and Nowshera. On March 12, 2002, Zahidullah, the then-Director of Archives, assigned Assistant Research Officer Mukarrab Khan (now the current Director) the responsibility for transferring and safeguarding the record.
By May 15, 2002, the record—comprising three truckloads and including documents dating back to 1880 from the British colonial period—was transferred to the archives. The archive included land revenue, judicial, and domicile-related records. On May 20, 2003, additional documents were requested from the DC office and were subsequently transferred on May 26, 2003.
As per law, archival records cannot be moved to any library. However, sources claim that the documents were relocated to a library near Rehman Baba’s shrine without any written authorization or official oversight. Not only was the record poorly handled, but parts of it were also lost or destroyed.
The Higher Education Department later formed a fact-finding inquiry committee headed by the Deputy Secretary for Litigation, with members including Senior Librarian Anwar Jalal, Research Officer Munir Alam, and Archival Chemist Shah Jehan. The report notes that the records were moved by untrained laborers, resulting in further damage.
In 2018—16 years later—the Directorate attempted to retrieve the records, but reportedly only managed to recover one truckload. On July 23, 2023, the Director assigned an officer to safeguard the recovered documents, which indicates that no serious protective measures were taken for over two decades.
The inquiry report states that 220 bags of documents were completely destroyed, while 14,100 files were preserved—8,600 stored on steel racks and 5,500 in boxes.
Among the lost documents were vital pre- and post-independence revenue records, including rulings on land disputes by commissioners and deputy commissioners. The current Director asserts that the Directorate did not move the record independently but acted under instructions from the then-government.
A patwari (land records officer), speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the critical importance of the missing records, noting their frequent use in courts and land revenue offices. He said he had personally searched for some of the documents, only to find that most were already lost or in extremely poor condition. He added that at one point, some of the record had been shifted to Peshawar’s “Muhafiz Khana” (record room), where it deteriorated further.
Until 2022, the Archives Department had sent nine letters to senior members of the Board of Revenue, Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners, and District Record Officers requesting the return of the documents—none of which were responded to. Finally, on September 20, 2023, the Commissioner’s office sent a letter, which also went unanswered.
The inquiry committee has recommended that a committee of departmental focal persons be formed to catalogue existing records. If any document needs to be disposed of, it should be done under the National Archives Act of 1993. The report also stresses the need to hand over the case to police or anti-corruption authorities for a full and transparent investigation.
