Pakistan’s Hindu community celebrated the Janmashtami, a festival marking the birthday of Hindu god Lord Krishna with great fervour on Wednesday (August 28).

  

Men, women and youth from Hindu minority community in the city of Karachi thronged temples to pray and perform religious rituals.

  

The celebrations were also held in other parts of Pakistan where the tiny Hindu minority resides.

People from Hindu community fast throughout the day and the prayers are offered all night and religious hymns are sung in the temples.

  

The celebrations climax at the midnight hour when it is believed Lord Krishna was born.

  

In Karachi, the devouts formed huddle at Swami Narain temple where they gave a traditional bath of milk and honey to the idol of Lord Krishna. Hymns were sung to mark the occasion.

  

The temple and the houses in surrounding area were illuminated with lights.

  

According to Hindu mythology, Krishna is the eighth incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the Preserver and one of the trinities of the Hindu pantheon. The other two being Lord Brahma, the Creator and Lord Shiva, the Destroyer.

  

Krishna is believed to have taken human form to destroy an evil king called Kansa, who ruled some parts of the northern Indian region with Mathura as his capital.

  

Krishna's imprisoned parents had to smuggle out the child born at midnight to save him from Kansa.

Vasudev, Krishna's father, carried his newborn child in a reed basket and left him in the care of another couple at `Gokul'-- far away from his birthplace Mathura.

  

Thus Janmashtami is celebrated on two consecutive days; the first is the day when Krishna was actually born, and the second, when he reached Gokul.

  

The tiny Hindu community forms less than two percent of majority Muslim Pakistan where more than 90 percent of 180 million people practice Islam.