Pak PM to lay stone for Kartarpur corridor on Wednesday

Kartarpur (Pakistan), November 27 

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan will on Wednesday lay the foundation stone for the much-awaited corridor linking Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur — the final resting place of Sikh faith's founder Guru Nanak Dev — to Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India's Gurdaspur district to facilitate visa-free movement of Indian Sikh pilgrims.

Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan is located across the river Ravi, 4 km from the Dera Baba Nanak shrine. 

The Kartarpur Corridor, which will facilitate the visa-free travel of Indian Sikh pilgrims to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, is expected to be completed within six months, Pakistan Foreign Office Spokesman Mohammad Faisal said on Tuesday.

The development comes ahead of Guru Nanak's 550th birth anniversary next year.

Pakistan had invited External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who thanked her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi for the invite and said she was unable to travel to Kartarpur Sahib due to prior commitments.

India will send Union ministers Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Hardeep Singh Puri to Pakistan Wednesday to attend the groundbreaking ceremony of the corridor in Kartarpur.

Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) president Gobind Singh Longowal along with other SGPC members crossed over to Pakistan through the Wagah border on Tuesday to attend the ground breaking ceremony of the Kartarpur corridor. 

India has said it will build and develop a corridor from Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district to the International Border to facilitate Sikh pilgrims visiting Gurdwara Darbar Sahib at Kartarpur.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday hoped that the Kartarpur Corridor would act as a bridge between the peoples of India and Pakistan that might lead to a better future as he referred to the fall of the Berlin Wall to underline the importance of people-to-people contact.

The issue of Kartarpur Sahib came into focus after Punjab Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu visited Pakistan in August to attend the oath-taking ceremony of his cricketer-turned-politician friend Imran Khan as prime minister of that country.

After his return, Sidhu said that Pakistan Army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa had told him that Pakistan may open a corridor to Kartarpur Sahib.

Sidhu has already arrived in Lahore with a group of Indian journalists to attend the ground breaking ceremony on Wednesday.

The India-Pakistan ties nose-dived in recent years with no bilateral talks taking place. The ties between the two countries had strained after the terror attacks by Pakistan-based groups in 2016.

On Monday, Indian Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh laid the foundation stone of the corridor in Gurdaspur. - PTI