Dehradun, May 29 -- The Metropole Hotel complex located in Nainital, which was designated by the government as enemy property in the 1960s, has been temporarily allotted to the Uttarakhand government for use as parking, till further orders, by the Union home ministry . Officials aware of the development said that Union home minister Amit Shah has informed chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami about this issue through a letter. Dhami had requested the home minister to temporarily allocate the open space of the Metropole Hotel complex for parking in view of the serious parking problem in Nainital. Accepting the request of the chief minister, the property has been temporarily allotted to the state government by the home ministry for use as parking. Officials said this decision will provide great relief to tourists and local citizens visiting Nainital. The parking space is expected to provide relief to the increasing problem of parking. The chief minister has expressed his gratitude to Shah for this decision. "This will greatly facilitate us in solving the parking problems in Nainital," he said. In June last year, Dhami had met Amit Shah in New Delhi and informed him that there was a problem of parking in view of the increase in devotees and tourists in Nainital. He had requested the home minister to give the land of the Metropole Hotel complex in Nainital to the state government for vehicle parking and road widening. The Custodian of Enemy Property is a government department that is empowered to appropriate property under the Enemy Property Act, 1968 in India owned by Pakistani nationals, who lived here before partition. After the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, the Enemy Property Act was promulgated in 1968. In 2017, Union Home ministry granted the approval as per the amended "Enemy Property Act, 2017" to dispose of the properties free from the legal hurdles. Ajay Singh Rawat, a Nainital-based historian, said the Metropole Hotel is a famous heritage hotel which was built in 1880 by the Britishers. "Later, the hotel was owned by Mohammad Amir Ahmed Khan, the then king of Mahmudabad. After he moved to Pakistan after the partition, it was run by one Bajji Kapadia till 1960, after which it was run by Anand Luthra, a famous local restaurateur, till it was declared Enemy Property after the Enemy Property Act was passed in 1968. Actor Vinod Khanna was also interested in buying this property. Mohammad Ali Jinnah also spent his honeymoon here in 1919. Rahul Sankrityayan, the famous scholar wrote a book on Kumaon while staying in this hotel in 1923" He added that in July 2023, illegal occupants of the hotel compound were directed to vacate the compound by Uttarakhand high court for demolition of the illegal structures that had sprung up in its compound over the years....