ISLAMABAD, Aug 5: The 10-member delegation of Buddhist monks on Monday started their journey on foot from the shrine of Bari Imam to Taxila where they would formally start the three-month Pakistan-India Prayer March for Peace on Tuesday.

The monks, in a symbolic gesture of cultural and religious brotherhood of humanity, paid visit to the shrine of Hazrat Bari Imam on Monday morning. From the shrine they marched to the Faisal Mosque, where Pakistani officials and the president of All Pakistan Buddhist Society greeted them and praised the spirit of peace for which the monks were undertaking the journey of thousands of miles on foot.

In the afternoon, the monks marched across the Margalla Hills upto the Giri site of Taxila in the sweltering heat. The peace march will formally begin today (Tuesday) with a meeting in memory of the victims of Hiroshima at Dharmarajika Stupa.

Some 60 years ago this day, thousands of innocent civilians died after the United States dropped the first ever atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

The peace march is meant to highlight dangers of nuclear holocaust between Pakistan and India.