The people of northern Chitral celebrated Jashan-e-Qaqlasht, the traditional festival, from April 24-27. The commuinities around the Qaqlasht plateatu participated with great enthusiams. Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, Sarhad Tourism Corporation and Chitral Association for Mountain Area Tourism sponsored the event through joint venture. The festival consisted of cultural and sporting events. The sporting events were: traditional free style polo, tug of war, football, vollyball, shot putt, marksmanship with muzzle-loader gun, paragliding and marathon race and so on. The cultural activities included day and night musical programmes, poetry session, school speesh contests and the like.
The major objective of the festival is to promote tourism related enterprises and business opportunities beside providing entertainment and affording enabling environment to the local communities particularly youngsters so that in the field of sport and culture they will be able to perform in a better manner.