Katas Raj: Indian pilgrims to attend festival

          Karachi: Around 200 Hindu pilgrims will travel to Pakistan to attend a three-day festival at the famous Katas Raj temples in Pakistan's Punjab province. The festival is being held after several decades next week. A team of Pakistani archaeologists travelled to India to study techniques for its restoration, reported the Daily Times. The festival is taken as another sign of the thaw between the two countries. "We are expecting some 200 pilgrims from India to visit," the paper quoted Oriya Maqbool Jan, director-general of the Punjab Archaeology Department, as saying. According to the paper, the festival will be the first at the temple since 1947 although a trickle of pilgrims from India had visited over the years. The temple, built on a hilltop named Saidan Shah about 120 km south of Islamabad, is mentioned in ancient Hindu and Sikh scriptures. Maqbool Jan led a team of experts to India last year to learn techniques used in the successful restoration of part of the temple. He said that the complete restoration of the temple would cost about 1.8 million dollars.
- Feb 7, 2007

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