Ethnic Pakistani Sheedi devotees offer garlands to alligator during the alligator festival at the shrine of Saint Khawaja Hasan in Manghopir, a suburb of Karachi, on Sunday. They believe the crocodiles are manifestations of the Sufi saint.
The yearly festival attended by Sheedis, whose ancestors are believed to have been brought to the subcontinent as slaves from Africa, is performed to pay homage to alligators who they believe hold mystical powers.
Some archaeologists have claimed to have found fossilised remains of crocodiles here that are thousands of years old and some British colonial writers also suggested that they have been here for ‘thousands of years.’ AP/PTI
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