Goraknath Temple at Gor Khatri in Pakistan Opens after 60 years

A historic 160-year-old temple at Gor Khatri in Peshawar in northwest Pakistan was reopened to Hindus after 60 years on court orders. Goraknath Temple is dedicated to Shiva. The temple belonged to a Hindu family but was taken over by authorities in 1960. The temple was opened to worship for Diwali. Continuous worship will not be possible as the provincial archaeology department will continue to control the temple.

The Hindu reports
Scores of Hindus, including women and children, visited the Goraknath temple at Gor Khatri, which was reopened after Phool Wati, the daughter of the shrine’s cleric, petitioned the Peshawar High Court. 

Phool Wati and her son Kaka Ram have claimed that the temple, which has been controlled in past decades by the police, Evacuee Property Trust Board and the provincial archaeology department, belongs to their family. 

Kaka Ram said his father, Pandit Kamoram, had refused to move to India at the time of Partition in 1947 and decided to settle in Pakistan.

“However, after his death in 1960, we were not able to protect our property and it was taken over by the authorities,” he told local journalists. 

The temple is small and surrounded by nine rooms on two sides. The white temple with three domes in the middle of an enclosure has two small rooms with statues of deities.

Red, black and yellow pennants and flags have been hoisted over the temple. 

Peshawar Hindu Balmik Sabha leader Ram Lal said a majority of Hindus in the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province are Balmiks and have only three temples, two of which were closed. 

In his book “Peshawar: Past and Present”, noted historian S.M. Jaffar wrote that the Gor Khatri temple was identified as a place of pilgrimage where Hindus performed the ‘Sardukahr’ or shaving of head ritual.

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