Pakistan’s intelligence agency sleuths are using the Kartarpur corridor to meet and cultivate contacts among Indians going on the pilgrimage, sources told News18.
According to sources, the Indian side is collecting evidence and the matter will be raised with Pakistan soon.
India has also objected to the business meets being held at the corridor, a case in point a recent Rotary Club meeting, said sources.
After being shut for 20 months due to Covid outbreak, the corridor was re-opened last November.
THE HISTORY
In February 1999, the Kartarpur Sahib corridor was proposed by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee when he took a bus ride to Lahore during a peace initiative with Pakistan.
A year later, Pakistan agreed to build a bridge from the India side of the border to the shrine, allowing Sikh pilgrims from India to visit the shrine visa-free (and without a passport).
In August 2018, Navjot Singh Sidhu attended Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s inauguration ceremony. Sidhu said that upon his return from Islamabad, Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa informed him that the Pakistan government planned to open the Dera Baba Nanak (Kartarpur) corridor on Guru Nanak’s 550th birth anniversary.
India signed the Kartarpur corridor agreement with Pakistan on October 24, 2019.
THE CORRIDOR
Under the pact, Indian pilgrims of all faiths are allowed to undertake round-the-year visa-free travel through the 4.5-km Kartarpur corridor. It links the Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib, the final resting place of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev in Pakistan, to the Dera Baba Nanak shrine in the Gurdaspur district of India.
On November 9, 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the portion of the corridor falling on the Indian side, while his then Pakistan counterpart Imran Khan inaugurated the corridor’s part on the Pakistani side, three days ahead of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, his wife Gursharan Kaur, then Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, and Union minister Hardeep Puri were part of the first group that visited the gurudwara in Pakistan in November 2019 through the corridor.
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