Pakistan to open Kartarpur corridor for Indian Sikhs in Nov
KARTARPUR: Kartarpur corridor will be opened on 9th November for Indian Sikh pilgrims marking the 550th birth anniversary of Sikhism founder Baba Guru Nanak.
The visa-free border crossing from India to Kartarpur, Pakistan, will be inaugurated in November, just ahead of the 550th birth anniversary of Baba Guru Nanak on 12th November.
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 Pakistan. The temple marks the site where the guru died.
Project Director Atif Majid told the journalists in a meeting that eighty-six percent of the work on the corridor has been completed and it would be opened for pilgrims on 9th November.
The project director said that the corridor would connect Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur with Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Gurdaspur district of Punjab and facilitate visa-free movement of Indian pilgrims, who would only have to obtain a permit to visit Kartarpur Sahib.
Read also: Pakistan lauded by Sikh community on Kartarpur Corridor
He said that the Sikh pilgrims would be given special permits instead of visas to access the shrine. Indian pilgrims would pay Pakistan $20 to use the corridor, which includes roadways, an 800-meter bridge over the River Ravi and an immigration office.
Pakistan is building the corridor from the Indian border to the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur while the other part from Dera Baba Nanak in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district up to the border will be constructed by India.
Both countries have agreed that Pakistan would allow 5,000 Sikh visitors per day into the country through the corridor, which will also be the first visa-free corridor between the two neighbours since their independence in 1947.
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