To com­mem­o­rate the first an­niver­sary of the Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor, Dal Khalsa or­ga­nized a gath­er­ing of ac­tivists and Sikh de­vouts on the In­dian side of the Kar­tarpur Cor­ri­dor site near Dera Baba Nanak in Gur­daspur and re­solved to urge In­dia to re­open the his­toric cor­ri­dor prior to the 551st an­niver­sary of Guru Nanak Sahib Gur­purab on 30 No­vem­ber 2020.

AMIDST HUN­DREDS OF SIKHS HOLD­ING PLAC­ARDS AND BAN­NERS URG­ING IN­DIA TO FOL­LOW SUIT WITH PAK­ISTAN, DAL KHALSA has called for an early re­open­ing of the Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor. Terming the Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor as a sym­bol of faith and bonds, Dal Khalsa, Akal Fed­er­a­tion and other groups and promi­nent per­son­al­i­ties urged the In­dian gov­ern­ment to re­open this his­toric pil­grims’ path­way.

With a show of hands, the Sikh San­gat passed a res­o­lu­tion to be sent to the gov­ern­ment of In­dia seek­ing re­open­ing of the Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor prior to the Parkash Purab -the 551st birth an­niver­sary of Guru Nanak Sahib on 30 No­vem­ber.

Mak­ing his pub­lic ap­pear­ance af­ter long, for­mer Jathedar Jogin­der Singh Vedanti presided over the func­tion and com­mended the gath­er­ing for their com­mit­ment to re­fo­cus on the open­ing of the Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor.

For­mer Jathedar of Takht Damdama Sahib Gi­ani Ke­wal Singh and Pan­thak Co­or­di­na­tion Com­mit­tee co-con­venor Ad­vo­cate Jaswinder Singh also joined the gath­er­ing and spoke on the oc­ca­sion. Ac­tivist-scholar Dr Sukh­preet Singh also pre­sented his views and pro­vided a his­toric per­spec­tive for the con­gre­ga­tion which re­ceived a spir­ited re­sponse.

The Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor stays closed since March 16 for COVID19 rea­sons. Sikhs from In­dia rue the fact that while life oth­er­wise is work­ing nor­mally, the In­dian side of the Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor re­mains shut to Sikh pil­grims on its first an­niver­sary, said Harpal Singh Cheema pres­i­dent of the Dal Khalsa while ad­dress­ing the gath­er­ing.

He said Covid19 can’t be an ex­cuse to keep the cor­ri­dor op­er­a­tion sus­pended any­more. Guru Nanak’s 551st Parkash Purab is slated to be on No­vem­ber 30, so the gov­ern­ment must re-open the path­way be­fore the Gur­purab re­spect­ing the re­li­gious sen­ti­ments of all Nanak Naam Leva San­gat.

Speak­ing on the oc­ca­sion, chief of the United Akali Dal -Gur­deep Singh Bhatinda said promi­nent pil­grim­age sites across the world as well as in the coun­try, which had been par­tially or fully closed due to the Covid-19 pan­demic had been re­opened and it is time that this his­toric site is also re­opened with­out de­lay.

Re­it­er­at­ing their call, Kan­war Pal Singh said, “In the wake of the COVID19 pan­demic out­break, the jour­ney across the Kar­tarpur Cor­ri­dor was tem­porar­ily sus­pended on 16 March and even though the Pak­istan side opened it in June, In­dia con­tin­ues its de­lay­ing tac­tics and has yet to re­voke the sus­pen­sion, even when the Jathedar of Akal Takht Sahib Harpreet Singh and Sikh re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship has also urged the gov­ern­ment to do so.”

Akal Fed­er­a­tion con­venor Nar­ien Singh said af­ter a long strug­gle the dream of Sikhs had turned into re­al­ity last year. Sig­nif­i­cantly, even at the time of the open­ing of the cor­ri­dor, the ini­tia­tive was taken by Pak­istan Prime Min­is­ter Im­ran Khan and In­dia had re­sponded. In­dia needs to re­peat this as Sikhs ea­gerly await the re­open­ing of the Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor.