Pakistani youths celebrate New Year in Lahore. (AFP)

Islamabad, Jan. 1: For many affluent Pakistanis, it was a New Year as usual.

While more than 3.5 million survivors of the October 8 earthquake battled rain and snow in northern Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, farmhouses and upscale localities in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad rippled with celebrations on New Year’s Eve.

Alcohol, forbidden to Muslims by Islamic law and allowed to non-Muslims against special permits, was abundant in parties where young couples danced to Indian rhythms like Kaanta laga and Dhoom macha de.

Most of these parties took place away from the vigil of activists of some religious groups, who had formed a “danda force” to dissuade people from such celebrations.

The vigilantes are at work almost every year but with a fading strength in the largely liberal Pervez Musharraf regime.

Police patrolled in posh areas of all big cities through the night to deter zealots from disrupting festivities.

Karachi, for instance, burst into celebrations as the city rang in 2006, when thousands of people, mostly youths, thronged the beach and raised the chorus of “Happy New Year”.

In Lahore, police and youngsters played cat and mouse as police struggled to regulate traffic.

Unusual night traffic choked major Lahore roads, while the rich ? traders, industrialists and show biz stars ? welcomed the New Year at their homes in well-guarded areas or at farm houses.

In Islamabad, the two five-star hotels ? Marriott and Serena ? organised parties under unusual surveillance. The licensed liquor shops at the hotels had run out of stock much before December 31.

“Most of the stuff people acquired is the one imported legally in the name of non-Muslims or smuggled,” said a counter clerk at one of the hotels in Islamabad.