ISLAMABAD: Islamabad on Friday rejected “unwarranted and gratuitous” remarks made by Indian Home Minister Amit Shah, questioning the partition of the Sub-continent and the location of the revered Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, Pakistan.
The visa-free border crossing, from India to Kartarpur in Pakistan's Narowal district, was inaugurated in November 2019 just ahead of the 550th birthday of Sikhism's founder, Guru Nanak.
The corridor connects the Sikh shrines of Dera Baba Nanak in India to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, and is seen as a rare example of cooperation and diplomacy between the two South Asian neighbours.
On Thursday, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah said there was an "error" in the place being left out of India during the partition of the British-ruled Sub-continent in 1947.
“Pakistan categorically rejects the unwarranted and gratuitous remarks made by Indian Home Minister Amit Shah, during a recent event, questioning the partition and location of Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan,” the Pakistani foreign office said in a statement.
“It is deeply regrettable that distortion of historical facts has become the hallmark of the BJP government along with its ideological fountainhead RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh),” it said.
“The resort to such delusional thinking by the Indian leadership has been strikingly frequent over the last couple of months in the wake of the elections in several states in India.”
When Pakistan and India were carved out of the Sub-continent at the end of British rule in 1947, Kartarpur ended up on the Pakistani side of the border, while most of the region's Sikhs remained on the other side.
For over seven decades, the Sikh community lobbied for easier access to their holiest temple.
“It is also worth remembering that it was Pakistan which had brought to fruition the idea of Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur Corridor, while India kept dragging its feet,” the foreign office noted, saying Islamabad completed the project in record time as a “gift” to the Sikh community in India and worldwide.
