Indian pilgrims due for Pakistani Hindu festival

KARACHI: A Hindu festival will be held at an ancient temple in Pakistan for the first time in decades next week after Pakistani archaeologists travelled to India to study techniques for its restoration.   

A three-day Jigrattan Hindu festival at the partially restored Katas Raj temple in Punjab province is another sign of the thaw between the two countries.   

"We are expecting some 200 pilgrims from India to visit," Oriya Maqbool Jan, director-general of the Punjab Archaeology Department, told on Tuesday.   

The festival will be the first at the temple since 1947 although a trickle of pilgrims from India has visited over the years.   

The temple, built on a hill top named Saidan Shah about 120 km (80 miles) south of the capital, Islamabad, is mentioned in ancient Hindu and Sikh scriptures.   

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 the complete restoration of the temple would cost about $1.8 million.   

Lal Krishna Advani, a former Indian deputy prime minister and former president of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, visited the temple on a landmark trip to Pakistan in 2005.   

Hindus make up less than two percent of Pakistan's 160 million people.