3-day cultural, tourism festival concludes in Khanpur

HARIPUR: The three-day Khanpur festival concluded here after entertaining tourists on Monday.

The festival, which started on February 14 attracted over 100,000 tourists including foreigners during the gala. The event was aimed at showcasing the importance of local culture, archaeological sites, ecotourism, traditional food, music, folk dance and songs. The district administration had set up different stalls of handicrafts, Khanpuri oranges, traditional cuisines, books and history corner.

The visitors including the foreigners enjoyed the waterside activities like paragliding, water scooter and boating while the folk dance, folk music by local, Gilgiti and Pashto performers attracted the picnickers. Some of the foreigners were also seen dancing to the drumbeat and folk music.

The festival witnessed an increased number of tourists while the Hindko language singers like Muhammad Asif Hazara, Tariq Hazara and Sanam Afreen entertained the visitors with folk songs, dance including kuhmbar, maheeya and different musical instrument. A grandiose firework show was also presented on Sunday night for the entertainment of participants.

Hazara Commissioner Syed Zaheerul Islam was chief guest at the closing ceremony. Speaking to the participants, he said that the provincial government was committed to promoting tourism in the province, especially in Hazara division. He said that Khanpur Lake would be developed as one of the tourist attraction spots as it has great potential of promoting tourism with added benefit of generating economic activities for the locals.

He said that being situated in the neighborhood of ancient cultural treasure of Gandhara civilization, the Khanpur Dam would soon become a hub of tourists both for domestic and foreign. The official appreciated the district administration for successfully organizing the festival. The prize distribution ceremony was held in the end.