PESHAWAR - A colourful and an impressive opening ceremony of the third Inter Provincial Games-2008 was held here at Qayyum Sports Complex Sunday amid cheering, clapping, zeal and passion from the audience. The City, after a long time, was going to host such a big sports event. Its dwellers enjoyed it a lot as they may have not remembered a gala like this in the province in the near past. And it could be judged that most of the audience, majority of them were children and youngsters, have reached the sports complex early in the morning. The slogan of the games is "Sara Pakistan-Hamara Pakistan". The NWFP Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti, who was the chief guest, arrived to the venue exact at the scheduled time 10: 30 a.m. Formal proceedings of the ceremony started with national anthem presented by students wearing traditional dresses reflecting all the four provinces. Followed by the recitation from Holy Quran by Nitasha Anwar. Meanwhile, the chief guest declared games of the 3rd Inter Provincial Games as open. A former athlete and four gold medals winner Bahr-i-Karam while carrying a national flag started march past. Wearing their specific nice-looking dresses, next was the contingent of Baluchistan province led by chef de mission Afzal Awan, while Arsalan Khan followed by carrying the flag. Col (r) Aamir headed Sindh contingent and similarly Obaidullah Mukhtiar was the flag bearer. Khwaja Idrees of Punjab led Punjab contingent. Chef de mission Faqir Mohammad Awan led the host NWFP contingent while the flag bearer was Aimal Khan. All the contingents passed in front of the terrace and received standing ovation from a large number of spectators. Former Olympian Qazi Salahuddin while carrying a torch came into the Stadium and then the former winning athletes already stationed at the stadium ran one to the other light their torches and continued the run until the last athlete Qamar Zaman, for world squash champion, who lit a torch, which will remain lit until the closing ceremony. On this occasion oath was also administrated to Shuja-ur-Reman on behalf of the participating players pledging that they would respect the rules of the games. Clad in black, blue, red, yellow and green, students of various government schools presented PT. The audience enjoyed enough and applauded them for their best performance. Besides, receiving a huge clapping. Petals were also showered on audience and players from a glider piloted by Qazi Tufail. In addition, colourful pigeons were also set free, while a special game song was also played. Not only this, a Pashto song was also sung. Meanwhile, the chief guest met the children who presented the national song and national anthem. Afterwards traditional folk dances of the four provinces were also presented. The FC jawans added more to the overjoyed ceremony by presenting traditional and well famous Khattak, Mehsud, Bitani and Chitrali dances on drum beats and ultimately received non-stop clapping and appreciation from the viewers as a large number of people witnessed the ceremony. Prominent among those who were present on the occasion were Baluchistan provincial minister for sports Shah Nawaz Marri, NWFP minister for information Mian Iftikhar Hussain, Chief Secretary Riaz Noor, president of Pakistan Olympic association Lt Gen (retd) Arif Husan, and officials of sports department. Talking to media men, Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti said: "We want peace on our soil". Holding of inter provincial games in the prevailing situation was a difficult task, as this part of the country was confronted with terrorism and militancy. But, we proved that we could organize such event. "We want to convey a message to the rest of the World that we are peace long people and committed to restore peace here" he remarked and also thanked provincial minister for sports Aqil Shah and his team for organizing the 3rd Inter Provincial Games in a good way, despite a fact that provincial government is short of resources. "I hope soon international games will also be held in the province," Hoti asserted.