A corridor that will allow Sikhs to cross from India into Pakistan to visit one of the religion’s holiest sites is to open today, with thousands expected to make a pilgrimage interrupted by decades of conflict.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to see off the first group of pilgrims, who are to be welcomed by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khanat the shrine marking the grave of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak at Kartarpur, just 4km inside Pakistan.
The Kartarpur Corridor marks a rare example of cooperation between the nuclear-armed rivals, who have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947 and in February conducted tit-for-tat airstrikes after a suicide bombing killed 40 Indian troops.
Photo: AFP
The deal allows for up to 5,000 pilgrims a day to cross a secure corridor and bridge between the two countries, leading directly to Guru Nanak’s grave.
“They are very excited,” Kartarpur shrine custodian Ramash Singh Arora said on Thursday, adding that he hoped the initiative would pave the way for similar access to other Sikh sites in Pakistan. “If you look at the history, the foundation of Sikhism is from Pakistan.”
In the months leading up to the opening, Pakistan employed hundreds of workers to spruce up the shrine, including building a border immigration checkpoint and a bridge, and expanding the site’s grounds.
India had long been asking Pakistan for such a corridor, but years of diplomatic tensions put plans on hold.
The opening comes just days ahead of Guru Nanak’s 550th birthday on Tuesady, which is marked with celebrations by millions of Sikhs around the world.
“For over 70 years, pilgrims haven’t had the chance to cross over, to come over and that is just ... it’s just ... it’s going to be a really emotional moment,” Malaysian pilgrim Karan Deep Singh said.
Others hoped the corridor would help mend ties between the rivals after years of hostility.
“It should improve and I’m hoping that it will improve. Definitely. Because the goodwill is oozing,” Bhajan Singh Grewal from Australia said.
The Sikh faith began in the 15th century in the city of Lahore, which is now part of Pakistan, when Guru Nanak began teaching a faith that preached equality.
There are an estimated 20,000 Sikhs left in Pakistan after millions fled to India following partition in 1947, which sparked the largest mass migration in human history and led to the death of at least 1 million people.
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
With a monthly pension barely sufficient to buy 15 eggs or a small bag of rice, Cuba’s elderly people struggle to make ends meet in one of Latin America’s poorest and fastest-aging countries. As the communist island battles its deepest economic crisis in three decades, the state is finding it increasingly hard to care for about 2.4 million inhabitants — more than one-quarter of the population — aged 60 and older. Sixty is the age at which women — for men it is 65 — qualify for the state pension, which starts at 1,528 pesos per month. That is less than US$13
RSS