AMRITSAR: Is Pakistan’s Shehbaz Sharif government planning to give visas on arrival to Sikhs willing to pay obeisance at the birthplace of Guru Nanak Dev? According to highly placed sources, deliberations are being held about allowing Indian followers of Baba Nanak to visit Nankana Sahib in Pakistan in exchange for a similar facility for the Pakistani Muslims to visit Ajmer Sharif or some other Muslim shrine in India.
For long, Sikhs have been taking up the issue of ‘Khule Darshan Seedar’ (free and easy access) of Gurdwara in Pakistan both with the Indian and Pakistani governments since a large number of Sikhs didn’t have passports and wanted to avoid cumbersome formalities to travel across the border.
Sources informed that it was during the visit of Shehbaz Sharif, the then chief minister of Pakistan Punjab, to his native village Jatti Umra, near Amritsar in 2013, when the Sikh leadership had taken up the issue of visa-free travel to Sikh shrines in Pakistan. “We have been taking up the issue of ‘khule darshan deedar’ of gurdwaras with the Pakistan government for a long but now we are hopeful that Sikh’s long-pending demand could be fulfilled,” said prominent Sikh leader Paramjit Singh Sarna.
When asked whether Pakistan could also demand a similar facility for Pak Muslims, Sarna said there was a possibility that the Pak government could ask for ‘Khule Darshan Deedar’ of Ajmer Sharif or another significant Muslim shrine in India . “But, first we want Pakistan to allow Sikhs to begin the process by allowing free and easy access to the birthplace of Guru Nanak Dev,” said Sarna.
