ISLAMABAD: The Sikh community in Pakistan on Monday celebrated the first anniversary of the opening of the Kartarpur Corridor, the foreign office said.
The visa-free border crossing from India to Kartarpur, Pakistan, was inaugurated last November just ahead of the 550th birthday of Sikhism’s founder, Guru Nanak. It connects the Sikh shrines of Dera Baba Nanak Sahib, in India’s Punjab region, to the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, Pakistan.
The corridor was seen as a rare example of cooperation and diplomacy between the two South Asian rivals, Pakistan and India, who came to the brink of war last year following a suicide attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that India has blamed on Pakistan. Islamabad denies complicity.
“Kartarpur Corridor, also known as the “Peace Corridor”, is a true symbol of inter-faith harmony and religious unity,” the Pakistani foreign office said in a statement. “The Sikh as well as the international community, including the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who while visiting Kartarpur described it as “Corridor of Hope, has immensely appreciated this landmark initiative of Pakistan.”
The Sikh minority community in India’s northern state of Punjab and elsewhere has long sought easier access to the temple in Kartarpur, a village just over the border in Muslim-majority Pakistan. The temple marks the site where the guru died.
To get there, travelers currently must first secure hard-to-get visas, travel to Lahore or another major Pakistani city and then drive to the village, which is just 4 km (2-1/2 miles) from the Indian border.
The corridor was temporarily closed in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As the religious places started gradually opening up around the world, Pakistan also reopened the Corridor on 29 June 2020 with COVID related necessary health safety protocols,” the foreign office said. “India has yet to reopen the Corridor from its side and allow the Sikh pilgrims to visit Kartarpur Saheb.”
Many Sikhs see Pakistan as the place where their religion began. Guru Nanak was born in 1469 in a small village near the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.
