Fear of coronavirus meant that a historic travel room created last year to allow Indian Sikhs to stop at a sacred shrine in northeastern Pakistan remained closed on Tuesday, one of the holiest days of faith.
Hundreds of Pakistani Sikhs visited the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, a huge temple in Kartarpur that marks the tomb of Sikh founder Guru Nanak to commemorate the 481st anniversary of his death.
This year would have been the first time the Indian Sikhs simply crossed Pakistan without a visa to commemorate the anniversary on the site, just 4 kilometers (two miles) inland, after the opening of a special crossing in November 2019.
The creation of the Kartarpur Corridor marked rare cooperation between nuclear weapons rivals, who have fought three wars since independence from Great Britain in 1947.
They sang sacred hymns from the Sikh scriptures, prayed, and bowed before Guru Granth Sahib, the Sacred Sikh book.
Some deplored the closure of the new crossing.
“This salon is not only a pilgrimage opportunity for our Indian cousins, but also an opportunity to come and meet us, which is quite difficult in a different way,” said Komal Mehra, a 25-year-old science teacher.
India, with around 89,000 coronavirus deaths, is the third most affected country in the world after the United States and Brazil and has imposed a number of restrictions.
When Pakistan separated from colonial India at the end of British rule in 1947, Kartarpur ended up on the west side of the border, while most of the Sikhs in the domain remained on the other side.
Kartarpur’s Gurdwara is so close to the Indo-Pakistan border that its magnificent white dome and 4 domes are visible on the other side of the border.
For up to 30 million Sikhs worldwide, the shrine is one of its holiest places.
zz / wat / rma