Kartarpur Corridor: India initiates campaign against Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: India has initiated malicious campaign against Pakistan with regard to opening of Kartarpur corridor and vitiate ambiance when about two months are left for historic 550th celebrations of Sikh religion founder Baba Guru Nanak at his last resting place in Pakistan Kartarpur town.

Diplomatic observers are apprehending that India is trying to subvert the opening of the corridor since its opening will generate great amount of goodwill in Sikh community for Pakistan. According to Indian media reports Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has alleged Pakistan that it is showing inflexibility about Indian demands pertaining to the corridor and visiting Kartarpur.

Incidentally, Pakistan offered the opening up of corridor in August 2018 in Islamabad when Indian cricketer turned politician Navjat Singh Siddhu requested for its opening to Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa. Later the work was inaugurated by Prime Minister Imran Khan while visiting Kartarpur.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also invited for the opening, but he declined to attend it. New Delhi has said that Pakistan showed inflexibility in talks on the Kartarpur corridor and gave unfavourable responses on issues of charging a service fee, the number of pilgrims to be allowed on special occasions and allowing protocol officials to accompany them.

Pakistan and India had agreed on visa-free travel by Indian pilgrims to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib using the Kartarpur corridor but stopped short of finalising an agreement on the cross-border route. Pakistan will allow 5,000 Indian Sikh pilgrims to visit the Gurdwara every day using the planned corridor and the numbers could be more on special occasions. But the two sides could not finalise the draft agreement on the corridor.

Indian MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said, “We had hoped that all pending issues will be resolved.

However, we realised that Pakistan was quite inflexible during the talks.” There were three issues on which the Indian side asked Pakistan to show some flexibility -- their insistence on charging $20 per pilgrim, allowing 10,000 pilgrims on special occasions and Indian protocol officer to accompany the delegation that visits Kartarpur every day.

“On all these counts we did not get a favourable responses,” Kumar said. “We remain committed to the project. We are on schedule... We have urged Pakistan to show some flexibility. It involves the sensibility of the people. It is a long-pending demand," he said.

In November 2018, India and Pakistan had agreed to set up the border crossing linking Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, the final resting place of Sikh faith founder Guru Nanak Dev, to Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district. Kartarpur is located in Narowal district adjacent to banks of the Ravi River, about four kilometres from Dera Baba Nanak.

The sources revealed that India wanted to charge money from the pilgrims which Pakistan opposed and insisted for construction of bridge for the passage that could take months for completion. Pakistan pledged to construct the bridge but for 550th birthday, announced to build path to facilitate the pilgrims.

India wanted to dispatch non-Sikh so-called protocol personnel who could be Indian spy-cum-terror sponsoring agency RAW’s men. Their presence could harass the pilgrims and for the reason Pakistan didn’t oblige India on this count. The sources expressed fear that India could subvert the project under some pretext but Pakistan is fully alert and resolute to make the corridor available to Sikh community on 550th birthday of Baba Guru Nanak Sahib in November next.