133 Hindu pilgrims from Pakistan visit Jagannath temple

A group of Pakistani pilgrims including 70 male, 50 female, and 13 children have reached Odisha's Puri. The delegation will leave for Varanasi on Sunday.

Puri: A group of 133 Hindu pilgrims from Pakistan on Saturday visited the Shree Jagannath Temple here.

The pilgrims included 70 male, 50 female, and 13 children, who reached here on Friday night. They visited the Shree Jagannath Temple and took the blessings of the Trinity Lords.

The delegation will leave for Varanasi on Sunday, one of the members said, adding that they had left Pakistan on December 27. They had been to Mathura before reaching here.

"It was a long-cherished desire to have darshan of Lord Jagannath. We got the visa with much difficulty. We thank the Indian government for facilitating our visit," said a devotee from Pakistan.

Another woman visitor said, "I prayed before the Lord that the relation between India and Pakistan gets normalised so that we get visa easily to visit Puri and offer prayers to the deities."