(Image source from: Pakistan to celebrate Durga Puja for the first time})

For the first time ever in its history, Pakistan will celebrate Durga Puja in its soil.

The first of its kind of a community-organized celebration will be held at the 150-year-old Swami Narayan Mandir in Karachi. The five-day-long celebration will be held from October 11 to 14.

This isn't the first time that a Hindu festival is being celebrated in the temple. Previously, it has  served as a venue to celebrations like Diwali, Dussehra, Janmashtami and Sri Ram Navami.
 
Quite interestingly, the shlokas to be chanted during the puja will be  scripted in Urdu and not Sanskrit as the Hindus in Pakistan are not well-versed in either Sanskrit or Hindi.

“The Gita, written in the Urdu script, is available in cities such as Lahore. Since we have spent our entire life in Pakistan, there is hardly any scope to learn Sanskrit and Hindi,” Harish Mokani, office secretary to the Pakistan Hindu Council said.

“Every year we celebrate Dussehra with pomp. This year we have decided to organise Durga puja too,” said industrialist Jethanand Doonger Mal Kohistani, president of the Pakistan Hindu Council and the moving spirit behind the puja.

For your information, there are more than 70 lakh Hindus in Pakistan, “most of whom are in Sindh province whose capital is Karachi.”

AW: Suchorita Dutta Choudhury