Retired Army officers and historians have opposed a proposal to relocate Secunderabad’s nearly 80-year-old World War II memorial near Parade Ground to make way for a proposed elevated corridor, urging authorities to preserve the site at its existing location.
The opposition followed a resolution passed by the Secunderabad Cantonment Board at a board meeting on October 6 to shift the memorial. The proposed elevated corridor is planned to connect Gymkhana Grounds with the Outer Ring Road at Shamirpet along State Highway-I, also known as Rajiv Rahadari.
Retired Army officers and city-based historians staged an hour-long peaceful protest near the memorial on Saturday. They called on the Secunderabad Cantonment Board and the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority to reconsider the relocation proposal and protect the structure at its current site.
Colonel Sunkara Srinivasa Rao, a retired Army officer and representative of the Akhila Bharatiya Poorva Sainik Seva Parishad, Telangana Prant, criticised the proposal in a press release. He said the memorial was not merely a stone structure but a symbol of military history and Secunderabad’s heritage.
The dispute places a historic public marker alongside a major transport proposal. The corridor is intended to run between Gymkhana Grounds and the ORR at Shamirpet, but the report does not specify the project’s construction schedule, alignment details or the technical alternatives considered for retaining the memorial in its present location.
The memorial’s reported age and connection with World War II have made its location central to the objections raised by the veterans and historians. Their argument is that moving the structure could weaken its historical identity and significance, rather than simply transfer a physical object from one site to another.
The protest also brings the roles of two public authorities into focus. The Secunderabad Cantonment Board passed the resolution concerning the memorial, while the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority has been urged by the protesters to preserve it at the existing location. The supplied report does not record a response from either authority to the objections.
The proposed corridor’s public rationale, design and implementation details remain limited in the available information. No decision reversing the board resolution, no alternative site and no confirmed preservation plan have been announced in the report.
Colonel Rao urged the cantonment board and HMDA to retain the memorial at its current location for future generations. The next step is expected to involve the authorities’ consideration of the demand to preserve the memorial while addressing the proposed elevated connection between Gymkhana Grounds and Shamirpet.
