After Op Sindoor, Kartarpur Corridor closed, 150 Sikh pilgrims turned back
Kartarpur Corridor, the only open surface link from India to Pakistan, was closed on Wednesday morning, hours after Operation Sindoor was launched. Kartarpur Corridor, the only open surface link from India to Pakistan, was closed on Wednesday morning, hours after Operation Sindoor was launched. (HT file photo)
Nearly 150 Indian Sikh pilgrims, who had arrived to take the Kartarpur Corridor for the pilgrimage to the historic Sri Darbar Sahib gurdwara in Narowal district of Pakistan, were asked to return home after a wait of an hour and a half at the integrated check post on Wednesday morning.
The ministry of home affairs' bureau of immigration announced the closure of the Kartarpur Corridor 'till further orders'. Gurdaspur deputy commissioner Dalwinderjit Singh, however, said that the corridor has been shut for today (Wednesday). He said the district administration had not received any orders from the government for the coming days.
The pilgrims had started arriving around 9am on Wednesday amid apprehensions that they would not be allowed to cross over to Pakistan due to the conflict underway since the wee hours. 'Immigration and defence officials told us that the situation is not conducive and advised us to return around 11am. It's unfortunate that we could not make it but national interest is above all,' said one of the pilgrims, requesting anonymity.
After the escalating tension on the border since the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22, there had been a steady decline in the number of Indian Sikh pilgrims going to Pakistan.
On April 23, the Government of India had decided to downgrade diplomatic ties with Pakistan in view of cross-border links to the terror attack that claimed the lives of 26 people, most of them tourists. While trade through the integrated checkpost at the Attari-Wagah border in Amritsar district was suspended, the Kartarpur Corridor had remained open till today.
The corridor was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then Pakistan PM Imran Khan on November 9, 2019, on the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, fulfilling a long-pending demand of the Indian Sikh community to have khuley darshan-didar (opportunity to visit) of the historic gurdwara.
Under the bilateral agreement, Indian devotees have visa-free access to the shrine, which has turned out be a meeting point of people from Indian and Pakistan Punjab after they were divided by the Partition of 1947. The corridor was normally open from dawn to dusk and pilgrims had to return the same day.
Last year, both countries renewed the agreement for five more years.
Initially, the corridor was operational for four months before the governments of both countries closed it in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. It was reopened on November 17, 2021.
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