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Kalash spring festival ends amid throngs of tourists

CHITRAL, May 16: The five-day-long spring festival of Kalash community, Chilim Jusht, concluded on Friday. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe chief event of the concluding ceremony was singing and dancing in the central dancing place of Bumburate in which hundreds of Kalash girls and boys danced in groups for hours in their traditional way. Taking out procession was yet another activity of the day in which about one thousands of all ages and sex participated which terminated at the dancing place called Charsu. The participants were carrying freshly plucked twigs of apricot which they constantly waved during their course of walk and it formed a part of their dogmatic belief. The Kalash people from the other two valleys of Rumbur and Birir had assembled in Bumburate valley to participate in the concluding ceremony. Tourists, both local and foreigners, had thronged the valleys on the occasion of the festival in large number unlike the past few years and the hotels in the valleys had been filled to their capacity. Keeping in view the threat to the Kalash community by Taliban in the early days of this year based on a video message, extraordinary security arrangements had been made to avert any terrorist activity during the festival. The participation of Kalash people in the chilim jusht festival is said to be obligatory and one loses his relationship with the community if fails to participate in it for three years consecutively. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWhile talking to this correspondent, a bitan (Kalash religious leader) Guruk said the festival is not only a festival to herald the spring season but it is also important from religious point of view as it contained almost all the rituals of the religion. Yet another activity of the festival is the marriage of couples who get into matrimony while this year eleven couples have reportedly tied the knot of marriage in all the three valleys. To add more colors to the festival, the culture department of the province had sent a team of singers to the valley from Peshawar who arranged cultural shows in the nights. The special advisor to the chief minister on minorities’ affairs, Sardar Soren Singh, stayed in the valleys during the festival. Mr. Singh of Birir valley said that the provincial government of PTI has determined to change the destiny of Kalash people who had been subjected to backwardness for the last seventy years. He said that under the CM directive, the construction of 52 kilometers black topped roads in all the three valleys has been approved which also included the re-construction of the ramshackle bridge at Ayun, the gateway to the valleys. He said that 10 million rupees have also been approved for the graveyard of the minorities in the valley. Mr. Singh claimed that he was the first government functionary to visit the valley on the occasion of the festival.–Zahiruddin]]>

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