Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB)

The Evacuee Trust Property Board is the Pakistan government body that looks after the religious places and trust land left behind by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains who migrated to India at Partition. Wikipedia says it was established in 1960. It works under the Evacuee Trust Properties (Management and Disposal) Act, No. XIII of 1975, which its own site lists, and under the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony. Its site names Qamar-uz-Zaman as chairman.

The Sikh shrines: Its Shrines Branch lists 17 major shrines, seven of them gurdwaras, including Janam Asthan at Nankana Sahib, Panja Sahib at Hassan Abdal and Dera Sahib at Lahore. It arranges the visits of Sikh pilgrims for four occasions: Baisakhi at Panja Sahib (3,000 pilgrims), the martyrdom day of Guru Arjan Dev at Lahore (1,000), the death anniversary of Maharaja Ranjit Singh at Lahore (500) and Guru Nanak's birthday at Nankana Sahib (3,000). It also looks after the affairs of the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, which was formed under the board.

Key moments

• 1960: the board is established. 1975: the Act under which it now works.
• 3 November 2020: Pakistan's religious affairs ministry makes official the transfer of Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur from the Sikh committee to a Project Management Unit under the board's administrative control. India called the decision "highly condemnable" and told the UN General Assembly that Pakistan had arbitrarily transferred the shrine's management.
• 3 December 2025: a Parliamentary Committee on Minority Caucus is told that Pakistan has 1,285 Hindu worship sites and 532 gurdwaras, of which only 37 are functional. Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani criticised the board for neglecting their upkeep (Dawn). Wikipedia cites the board's own count as over 1,130 temples and 517 gurdwaras; the counts differ by source and date.

Criticism: Wikipedia reports that in 2020 all six official members of the board were Muslim, and that a 2018 bill requiring a Hindu or Sikh chairperson was rejected by a committee in 2019. It also lists complaints that temples were leased out or converted, and that many sites were occupied by refugees and left to decay. These come from news reports it cites.

Where it stands today: The board remains the legal custodian of Pakistan's Sikh shrines and the body through which Sikh pilgrimages are arranged.