To attract Indians to Kartapur Sahib, Pakistan to celebrate spring festival

AMRITSAR: In order to attract devotees from India to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in

Kartarpur

, the Pakistani government has decided to celebrate ‘Jashan-e-Baharan’ (Basant), marking the arrival of the spring season.

While expressing concern over the significant decline in the number of devotees visiting Kartarpur Sahib everyday post reopening of the corridor, chief executive officer (CEO) of its project management unit (PMU),

Muhammad Latif

, said on Friday that they would celebrate ‘Jashan-e-Baharan’ or the Spring fest, celebrated by Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus alike, at Kartarpur Corridor in February.

Stating that only 73 devotees arrived at the Kartarpur

Corridor

on Friday from India, Latif said since the reopening, only 200-plus devotees have been arriving every day on an average.

The CEO attributed rapid spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus behind the decline in the number of devotees.

Claiming that they had never returned any Indian devotee in case they were not carrying a negative RT PCR report, the CEO said they themselves conduct free of cost Rapid RT PCR test at the border to adhere to the Covid guidelines. “Besides we also don’t want devotees to be bereft of fulfilling their religious aspirations despite reaching so close to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib,” said Latif.

He claimed that PMU had made arrangements of facilitating 5,000 devotees a day. “Various Indian organisations want to visit in jathas of more than 500 devotees but it seems that Indian authorities are only allowing 200-plus devotees per day,” he opined.

Inaugurated on November 9, 2019, the Kartarpur Corridor was temporarily closed on March 16, 2020, as a precautionary measure to contain the spread of the coronavirus. The newly constructed corridor enables Indian devotees to travel about 4.5 km inside Pakistan to pay obeisance at Gurdwara Darbar Sahib where Sikh’s first master, Guru Nanak Dev, had spent around 18 years till his death.

On October 2, 2020, the Pakistani government announced to unilaterally open the Kartarpur Corridor but India denied to reciprocate the gesture. On November 17, 2021, India reopened its side of the Kartarpur Corridor for the daylong pilgrimage.

The CEO said despite economic stagnation, the Pakistani government is spending a huge amount on the maintenance of the Kartarpur Corridor, for which it has specially created a separate department.

“We have over 1,000 dedicated staff, including security personnel, which costs us anything between 5 to 6 crore in Pakistani rupees per month,” said the CEO.