LAHORE, Oct 20: In an attempt to set a Guinness world record, about 70,000 Pakistanis gathered at the National Hockey Stadium in Lahore on Saturday night to render in unison the national anthem.

Grown-ups as well as children, mostly from government-run schools, colleges and universities, thronged the stadium where the Punjab government was holding an opening ceremony of the Youth Festival.

All those present sang the Pakistani anthem, including Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who was the chief guest on the occasion.

Immediately afterwards, the stadium reverberated with slogans of “Pakistan Zindabad”.

The organisers claimed that two officials of the Guinness Book of World Records were present on the occasion and that the attempt to create the record for most people singing a national anthem together had been successful.

However, they said the book’s officials had their own, rather time-consuming, procedure for confirming creation of records prior to their publication.

If it was confirmed that a new record had indeed been set, Pakistan’s name would be entered into the 2013 edition of the Guinness book of records.

The present holder of the record is India.

In his speech, Mr Sharif said the Lahoriites had not seen anything as beautiful as what they had witnessed on Saturday. He added that the festival was not just for Punjab but the entire country.

At least 10,000 youths are representing nine divisions of the province in sport and non-sport activities being held as part of the festival. The Punjab government has allocated a whopping Rs2.5 billion for the festival.

Meanwhile, the youths taking part in the festival will be attempting to set dozens of other records as well. The records to be attempted are: fastest time to arrange a chess set; fastest time to wire a plug; fastest time to make three chapattis; longest sequence of objects memorised in one minute; most number of table tennis strokes in one minute; most number of push-ups in one hour; fastest time to assemble a full cricket kit; most leapfrog jumps in 30 seconds by a team of two; heaviest weight pulled with moustaches; most number of T-shirts worn; most martial arts kicks in one minute using single leg; most martial arts kicks in three minutes; and, most consecutive football headers by a pair.

The youth of Punjab on Saturday in its first attempt break the mass participation record of singing the national anthem here at the National Hockey Stadium.Adjudicators of Guinness World Records Gareth Daeves and Imran Javed when gave their thumb up to the Punjab youth’s attempt, the whole stadium roared with applause.