Saturday, November 07, 2009
HASAN ABDAL: Roads were closed, shops shuttered and police on guard in Hasan Abdal, as about 2,000 Indian Sikh pilgrims defied advice to honour the founder of the faith.
Indian authorities urged the faithful to shun the annual pilgrimage to the neighbouring country, fearing for their safety. Tensions between India and Pakistan have increased since last year’s Mumbai attacks, but for defiant Sikhs, seeing the sites where their most revered spiritual leader, Guru Nanak, once trod was worth the risk.
“I had a strong will this year to visit holy shrines in Pakistan, despite all the advice and security threats being highlighted in the media,” said Manjeet Kor, a 20-year-old woman from the Poonch district of the Indian held Kashmir. “If I have to die in a bomb blast in Pakistan, nobody can avert it, so I decided to travel to Pakistan,” she said, strolling in the serene courtyard of Hasan Abdal’s sacred Gurdwara Panja Sahib shrine.
Sikhs arrived en masse from India this week to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Guru Nanak, founder of the Sikh religion. The authorities estimated 2,100 turned out for the event. The tour began in Guru Nanak’s birthplace, Nankana Sahib, near Lahore, before moving to Hasan Abdal, about 50 kilometres from Islamabad.
“The place is the Mecca of Sikhs. We will come here even if we come here to die,” said retired Indian Army captain Amar Singh, staring in awe at the main shrine. Pakistani police were taking no chances, and Gurdwara Panja Sahib was transformed into a fortress for the pilgrimage, which ended on Thursday. Barricades blocked all traffic on the roads around the shrine.
Heavily armed police stood by buildings and on streets, while authorities banned the movement of all non-Sikhs around the holy complex. Devotees — men in traditional turbans and tunics and women in colourful jewellery — worshipped in the courtyard, while some took an absolving dip in the water encircling the Gurdwara Punja Sahib complex.
“We have installed 35 security cameras around this complex and deployed 500 security guards,” said Hasan Akhtar, a senior police official on duty at the site. “There is no specific threat to this place, but we are confronting security problems as a whole in our country,” he told AFP.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
