65 Hindu couples tie the knot at mass wedding ceremony

As many as 65 Hindu couples were solemnised during a mass wedding ceremony on Sunday organised by the Pakistan Hindu Council (PHC) at the Railway Ground on II Chundrigar Road.

The colourful ceremony was the 16th of its series where 65 Hindu couples from Karachi and other parts of Sindh tied the knot in the presence of hundreds of Hindu families across the country. Notable dignitaries and members from civil society also participated at the event.

PHC Patron-in-Chief and member of Parliament Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani has been organising the mass weddings for underprivileged Hindu couples who cannot afford big wedding ceremonies for themselves on their own. The couples started reaching the ground at around 9pm. They sat in their enclosures of 10-by-10 square feet, which they referred to as Mandap.

Especial arrangements were made for the couples to perform prayers and for their families to perform the traditional marriage rituals.

One of the grooms, Varun wore a golden crown on his head as he sat next to his wife Priya in a shimmery red dress. Varun’s mother said that it was the first time any member of her family was tying the knot in a mass wedding ceremony and she found it an amazing experience.

Vankwani said that the council would be given Rs0.1 million to each every couple of the mass marriage. He said that in the upcoming year, they planned to make arrangements for the mass marriage of 200 couples.

“I am happy to kick off the New Year with such a good work of getting underprivileged couples married,” he said. Across 16 years, he said, they had got some 1,600 Hindu couples married. He shared how they registered couples from Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Punjab and invited couples who resided near Karachi to the mass wedding.

“We accommodate couples in hometowns who live in far-flung areas of the country,” he explained. He said that they supported Hindu couples without any discrimination. Notable figures from society, Vankwani said, provided support to the PHC as a best example of religious harmony. “There are always people around who support good causes,” he remarked.