New Delhi: The Indian History Congress and the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust have spoken out against the adoption of the Red Fort by a private company, protesting against "trifling with the structure" by involving a firm with "no claim to any experience in maintenance, conservation, preservation and interpretation of monuments".

Last month, cement and sugar manufacturer Dalmia Bharat Ltd inked a deal with the Union ministries of tourism and culture, and the Archaeological Survey of India to provide and maintain various tourist amenities at the Red Fort.

The Indian History Congress, a professional outfit of historians, on Wednesday objected to the involvement of the private firm.

"The Indian History Congress has already expressed its dismay over the freedom allowed to the Agha Khan Trust to interfere with the basic structures, decorations and ornamentation of Mughal monuments in the Humayun Tomb complex and surrounding areas. The way the Red Fort is being entrusted to Dalmia Bharat is still more troubling for the company has no claim to any experience in maintenance, conservation, preservation and interpretation of monuments," the IHC said in a statement.

"There is ample room for the fear that in order to attract tourist traffic it may propagate false or unproven interpretations of particular structures in the complex. Once such claims are set afloat, especially when they are of a sectarian character, it is found extremely difficult to get rid of them," the statement added.

The IHC demanded that the deal be suspended until a review by the Central Advisory Board of Archaeology or any other recognised body of experts.

The Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (Sahmat) statement signed by several academics, artists and theatre persons raised fears that the Red Fort move was aimed at implementing a Hindutva agenda.

"The present regime in power has an unsavoury past in regard to our heritage. It felt no compunction when its followers destroyed a 450-year-old monument of architectural importance in 1992 just because it was a mosque. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has long been propagating the cause of declaring all major medieval monuments, including the Taj Mahal and Delhi's Red Fort, as Hindu structures," the Sahmat statement said.

"It is surely a slur on the Archaeological Survey of India, the legal guardian of all monuments, that it is held to be incapable of maintaining a major national monument like the Red Fort," it added.