MYSURU: At a time when many people across the globe extended their support to Syed Issaq, who vowed to rebuild his library from scratch after it was burnt down allegedly by miscreants, officials from the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC), Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) and Department of Public Libraries visited the site on Monday assuring him of help.
Issaq was running the library on a small plot belonging to MUDA for the past 10 years. The library had a collection of over 11,000 books that mostly consisted of Kannada books and over 3,000 copies of Bhagavad Geeta, Holy Quran and Bible besides novels and books of various genres. Following a report published in The New Indian Express about the incident on April 9, several fundraising campaigns and book collection drives were launched by Good Samaritans.
On Monday, MCC commissioner Shilpa Nag along with MUDA commissioner Dr D B Natesh and Deputy Director of Department of Public Libraries B Manjunath visited the site to take a decision on allocating the land for the public library.Nag said she visited the site to see what best could be done.
“The land where Issaq ran his library over the past few years belongs to MUDA and the MUDA commissioner has agreed to earmark it for the department of public libraries where a brick-and-mortar library will be built. In addition to it, there is a library committee under the chairmanship of the Mysuru Mayor, to which Issaq will be appointed as a special invitee where a necessary decision relevant to the issue will be taken,” she said.
Nag added that the library will be restored to its former glory along with Issaq’s vision who will be made in-charge of the library.Meanwhile, help continued to pour in for Issaq from all quarters. The fundraiser started by Fathaheen Misbah on popular crowdfunding site Keto.org has garnered support across the globe, raising nearly Rs 20 lakh as of Monday. Mysuru-Kodagu MP Pratap Simha visited Issaq and handed over cheque for Rs 50,000.