LAHORE: Lahore Fort has been the preferred dating place for young couples since the 18th century, a large number of whom have etched their names and those of their loved ones on walls and trees at the site.

Some of these etchings date back to the British era. Sikh and British soldiers, who stayed in the fort, have written the names of their girlfriends and their regiments at Shah Jahan’s quadrangle, Hati Pair and Deewan-e-Aam. The inscriptions show that soldiers of ‘Regiment 99’ were the most romantic.

Modern daters have etched ‘I love you’ with their names and cities. ‘Our love is eternal’, a couple claims. Other writings are mere claims over women by heartbroken men, like “Naureen meri hai” (Naureen is mine).

The ‘tradition’ of young couples writing their names on walls and stones was three thousand years old, Lahore Fort Curator Afzal Khan told Daily Times. He said rock carving had become an art now, but etching names at Lahore Fort, a world heritage site, was a violation of the Antiquities Act 1975, punishable by six months’ imprisonment or Rs 5,000 fine. Nobody has ever been punished for the violation, he said to a question. “People usually commit the crime when no security guards are around.”

Khan said the names written on marble or kankar lime stone were hard to rub off, especially if written with markers. Getting marble cleaned could cost millions of rupees, he said, and if the plaster over the kankar lime was patched, it ruined the symmetry. He appealed to visitors not to write their names, especially on walls made of marble, red stone or kankar lime because it caused permanent damage.

He said most of the names were of girls, and written on the main route (Deewan-e-Aam, Akbari palace, backyard gardens, Shish Mahal and Jahangir’s quadrangle).

Sources in Lahore Fort told Daily Times that a number of couples bribed guards for safe dating ‘hideouts’ and it was they who etched their names on the walls. They said guards charged per hour for uninterrupted dating.