KARACHI, PAKISTAN, October 13, 2014 (Business Standard): Hindus in Pakistan celebrated the community-based Durga Puja festival in one of the country’s oldest temples here. The 150-year-old Swami Narayan Mandir is located in the violence-prone old quarter of Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city.
“The Durga Puja was completed on Saturday after being held for nine days and is a big occasion for the Hindus in Pakistan,” Ramesh Kumar of the Pakistan Hindu Council said. Kumar said Sanskrit shlokas written in Urdu script were chanted since the Hindus in Pakistan are not proficient in Sanskrit or Hindi and the new generation Hindus were more proficient in Urdu language which is why the Gita had also been written in the Nastaleeq script.
Kumar pointed out that majority of the Hindu community had little opportunities to learn the Sanskrit or Hindu language in Pakistan. He said that efforts are now on to compile a comprehensive database on the Hindu community in Pakistan since there are around seven million of them in the country mostly in Karachi and Sindh province.