Islamabad: A Christmas-themed train yesterday set out on a journey to criss-cross Pakistan in an effort to promote tolerance in the overwhelmingly Muslim country.
The government says it hopes to change mindsets in Pakistan, where attacks and persecution of religious minorities have become routine. Christians make up an estimated 1.6 percent of Pakistan's 200 million people and have long faced discrimination -- sidelined into lowly paid jobs and often the target of trumped-up blasphemy charges.
It set off yesterday afternoon from Islamabad to Peshawar, and will travel to Lahore on Christmas day before leaving for southern Karachi on January 1, it was said.
