As the 551st birth an­niver­sary of the founder of the Sikh faith -Guru Nanak, draws near, there is in­creas­ing mo­men­tum on the In­dian side of the Kar­tarpur Cor­ri­dor for its re­open­ing as it stays shut due to COVID19 rea­sons since March this year. In an­other move to fo­cus at­ten­tion on the is­sue, Dal Khalsa has writ­ten to In­di­a’s Prime Min­is­ter for in­ter­ven­tion and early re­open­ing of the cor­ri­dor to en­able pil­grims to whole­heart­edly par­tic­i­pate in the en­su­ing re­li­gious cel­e­bra­tions.

FOL­LOW­ING UP ON A RE­CENT RES­O­LU­TION OF A GATH­ER­ING BY SIKH SAN­GAT, on the In­dian side of the Kar­tarpur Cor­ri­dor, Dal Khalsa has sent an ap­peal to In­dian Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Modi seek­ing un­fet­tered ac­cess across the Kar­tarpur Cor­ri­dor at the ear­li­est to co­in­cide with the 551st birth an­niver­sary of Guru Nanak Sahib.

Sikh bod­ies gath­ered on the oc­ca­sion of the first an­niver­sary of the Kar­tarpur Cor­ri­dor on 9 No­vem­ber, near Gur­d­wara Dera Baba Nanak in Gur­daspur, un­der the lead­er­ship of for­mer Akal Takht Jathedar Jogin­der Singh Vedanti, for­mer Jathedar Gi­ani Ke­wal Singh had adopted a res­o­lu­tion which sought im­me­di­ate re­open­ing of the Kar­tarpur Cor­ri­dor from the gov­ern­ment of In­dia on the lines done by the gov­ern­ment of Pak­istan in June this year.

The res­o­lu­tion adopted on the oc­ca­sion and sent to the Prime Min­is­ter reads:

“Since the first lock­down on 25 March 2020, the pa­ra­me­ters for the sub­se­quent lock­down has been changed by the gov­ern­ment of In­dia de­pend­ing upon its as­sess­ment of the COVID19 con­di­tions. Since then there has been a marked change for the bet­ter in pub­lic life. Sikhs have started to throng to Gur­d­waras for par­tic­i­pa­tion in daily ac­tiv­i­ties and Gur­purabs. On its part, Pak­istan has opened up its side of the cor­ri­dor. Dal Khalsa be­lieves that it is time for In­dia to up­lift the em­bargo im­posed on 16 March when the Kar­tarpur Cor­ri­dor was shut in view of the Coro­n­avirus pan­demic.”

“If there can be elec­tions in Bi­har, what is stop­ping the re­open­ing of the Kar­tarpur Cor­ri­dor?”

The let­ter by the Spokesper­son of Dal Khalsa -Kan­war Pal Singh rea­sons that if there can be a full-fledged elec­tion with full peo­ples and lead­ers’ par­tic­i­pa­tion in the In­dian state of Bi­har, which is an in­di­ca­tion of the so­cio-po­lit­i­cal life re­turn­ing to nor­mal, there is ab­solutely no cause for de­lay­ing the re­open­ing of the path­way for pil­grims.

“In­dia must ho­n­our the sen­ti­ments of the Sikhs oth­er­wise it would an­other ad­di­tion to the litany of in­jus­tices by the In­dian gov­ern­ment. It is time to rec­i­p­ro­cate Pak­istan’s ges­ture and re­open the cor­ri­dor of peace and har­mony.”