Pakistan relaxes requirement for India to share Sikh pilgrims' list 10 days ahead of Kartarpur visit
November 19, 2021
Pakistan has decided to relax its mutually laid limit with India of 10 days advance intimation before the arrival of Sikh pilgrims to visit Kartarpur, according to sources.
Sources said the decision has been taken by Pakistan as a sign of respect for the religious sentiments of the Sikh Yatrees given India's last-minute decision to open the Kartarpur Corridor, which was likely to cause the Sikh pilgrims inconvenience.
Pakistan has given a relaxation till November 30 and expects the Indian government will follow the agreed process for visitors from December 1 onwards.
India and Pakistan are both required to process lists of Sikh pilgrims 10 days before their visit to Kartarpur to allow for necessary procedural clearances.
The Kartarpur Corridor, which links Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan, the final resting place of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev, to Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Gurdaspur district, reopened on Wednesday.
Pilgrimage to the Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara was suspended in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thousands of Sikh pilgrims have been crossing the border into Pakistan from India and the rest of the world since Wednesday to celebrate the birth anniversary of their religion's founder.
The Kartarpur Corridor, a visa-free crossing allowing Indian Sikhs to visit the temple in Pakistan where Guru Nanak died in 1539, first opened in 2019 for Nanak's 550th birth anniversary but was closed last year because of the pandemic.
The white-domed shrine in Kartarpur, a small town just four kilometres (2.5 miles) inside Pakistan, had remained out of reach of Indian Sikhs for decades because of hostile relations between India and Pakistan.
When Pakistan was carved out of India at the end of British rule in 1947, Kartarpur ended up on the Pakistan side of the border, while most of the region's Sikhs remained on the other side.
There are an estimated 20,000 Sikhs left in Pakistan after millions fled to India following the religious violence ignited by Partition.
Guru Nanak, born in 1469 to a Hindu family near the present-day Pakistani city of Lahore, is revered both by Sikhs and Hindus who prepare community feasts known as langars to mark his birth anniversary.
