A CRIME AGAINST NATURE

Fakhruddin Gutta is an extensive outcrop of sheetrock behind the village of Khajaguda near Gachibowli. It is almost as high as Jubilee Hills and commands a wide and splendid view of all the new Gachibowli constructions in the west (ISB, IT industries, Sportsvillage, Urdu University), Hitec City, Jubilee Hills and Banjara Hills towards the north, Golconda and the Qutb Shahi Tombs in the east, and as far as Himayat Sagar and Osman Sagar in the south.

The top of the sheetrock is strewn with impressive boulders and to its sides are huge piled-up rock formations with caves and corridors. The 650 year old tomb of Saint Hazrat Baba Fakhruddin Aulia marks the highest point of the rock sheet. Baba Fakhruddin was the spiritual mentor of Hasan Gangu, Founder of the Bahmani Kingdom and was buried here in 1353 AD. The tomb is a modest construction, but it stands in a grand landscape. Pilgrims and other visitors flock here every day, especially on Fridays and holidays. An annual “Urs” brings thousands of devotees to the dargah for several days. A small ancient Vishnu temple inside one of the rock formations nearby adds to the attraction of the hill.

This hill is an ideal recreation ground for a city that lacks in parks and lung space. It is a natural adventure park, a playground that needs no equipment, a meditation place of serene tranquility, an oasis of nature in an area that is building up frantically into a fast-paced industrial zone.

However, not only has the AP Mines Department allowed several quarries to eat into this beautiful area for 15 years, the government has now also decided to take it out of Recreational Zone and let it be built upon as part of a Special Economic Zone. The 2,500 million year old rock sheets and boulders will be broken and crisscrossed by roads, the caves destroyed and the valleys filled up, with concrete monsters as the skyline.

Already, the APIIC has sold many acres of land to LANCO for the development of an IT Park, right at the foot of the hill and reaching well onto the sheetrock that carries the dargah. It is only a question of time till the whole area will be nothing but the sad memory of a beautiful mountain.

The Society to Save Rocks had proposed to HUDA in 1997 to list the Fakhruddin Gutta as a Heritage Precinct under the Heritage Conservation Regulations. But only now, after 9 years, does HUDA seem willing to consider this proposal. Will it be too late?