LAHORE, Nov 9: The Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation held a cake-cutting ceremony here on Thursday to mark the fourth anniversary of the historic opening of the visa-free Kartarpur Corridor that links Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan to Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district.
The ceremony was held at the premises of the Lahore High Court. A good number of lawyers and the foundation members attended the event.
Speaking on the occasion, the foundation’s chairman Imtiaz Rasheed Qureshi said four years ago, the government of Pakistan opened the Kartarpur Corridor and sent a message of peace and love to the world, especially India.
“We request the governments of Pakistan and India to restore bus, train and air service immediately and make the visa process hassle-free,” he said and stressed for people to people contact for improving the relations between the two countries.
The corridor was inaugurated on November 9, 2019 on the eve of the 550th Birth Anniversary of Guru Nanak, the first Guru of Sikhism.
Kartarpur has a special significance in the Sikh religion as Guru Nanak had spent the last years of his life in Kartarpur.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who while visiting Kartarpur described it as “corridor of Hope.”
The corridor was temporarily closed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Five domes of Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib fell during a windstorm a few months after its inauguration. However, they were repaired and reinstalled.
It is a visa-free border crossing and religious corridor connecting the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, Narowal, some 130 kms from Lahore in Pakistan, to Gurudwara Dera Baba Nanak, Gurdaspur district, Punjab, India.
The crossing allows devotees from India to visit the gurdwara in Kartarpur, 4.7 kilometres from the India–Pakistan border on the Pakistani side without a visa. (PTI)
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