Pink, peacock-populated, possibly possessed Pakistani palace

a Pakistani megacity of 20 million people. Peacocks roam the lawn and the sounds of construction and traffic melt away as visitors enter the grounds.

a relic of a time when Muslims and Hindus lived side by side in the port city.

The building’s trustees have fended off an attemp

t to turn it into a dental college,

but there’s still a decadeslong lawsuit in

which heirs of a former owner are trying to take control of the land. It sat empty for almost two decades before formally opening as a museum in 1999.

The palace sits on prime real estate in the

desirable neighborhood of Old Clifton among mansions businesses and upmarket restaurants.

said palace lawyer Faisal Siddiqi. “It shows that greed is more important than heritage.”

Karachi’s population grows by around 2% every year and with dozens of communities and cultures

competing for space there’s little effort to protect the city’s historic sites.

Karachi’s multicultural past makes it harder to find champions for preservation than in a city like Lahore

with its strong connection to the Muslim-dominated Mughal Empire

said Heba Hashmi, a heritage manager and maritime archaeologist.

possibly possessed Pakistani palace

Mohatta Palace is a symbol of that diversity

The darkened and empty palace, with its overgrown gardens and padlocked gates, caught people’s imagination. Rumors spread of spirits and supernatural happenings

Someone who heard the stories as a young girl was Nasreen Askari, now the museum’s director.

“As a child I used to rush past,” she said.

Visitor Ahmed Tariq had heard a lot about the palace’s architecture and history. “I’m from Bahawalpur (in Punjab, India) where we have the Noor Mahal palace,

But the money to maintain the palace isn’t coming from admission fees.

General admission is 30 rupees, or 10 U.S. cents, and it’s free for students, children and seniors. On a sweltering afternoon, the palace drew just a trickle of visitors.

Local media report that residents grumble about traffic and noise levels.

Rumors about ghosts still spread by TikTok, pulling in influencers looking for spooky stories. But the palace bans filming inside, and briefly banned TikTokers.

“That’s what happens when you have anything of consequence or unusual. It catches the eye.”

A sign on the gates also prohibits fashion shoots, weddings and filming for commercials.

“We could make so much money, but the floodgates wuld open,” said Askari. “There would be non-stop weddings and no space for visitors or events, so much cleaning up as well.”

Hashmi, the archaeologist, said there is often a strong sense of territorialism around the sites that have been preserved.

“It counterproductively converts a site of public heritage into an exclusive and often expensive artifact for selective consumption.”