India slams Pakistan transfer of Kartarpur Sahib management to ‘non-Sikh body’

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said India received representations from the Sikh community expressing grave concern over the decision to transfer the management and maintenance of the gurdwara.

The Kartarpur Corridor was opened on November 9 in 2018 linking Gurdwara Darbar Sahib with Dera Baba Nanak in Punjab’s Gurdaspur.(File)

India on Thursday described as “highly condemnable” Pakistan’s decision to transfer the management of the Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara from a Sikh body to a separate trust, saying it runs against the religious sentiments of the Sikh community.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said India received representations from the Sikh community expressing grave concern over the decision to transfer the management and maintenance of the gurdwara.

“We have seen reports about Pakistan transferring the management and maintenance of the Holy Gurudwara Kartarpur Sahib away from the Pakistan Sikh Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee, a body run by the minority Sikh Community, to the administrative control of the Evacuee Trust Property Board, a non-Sikh body,” the MEA said.

Our statement on reports about Pakistan transferring the management and maintenance of the Holy Gurudwara Kartarpur Sahib pic.twitter.com/82S7we2P2y

— Anurag Srivastava (@MEAIndia) November 5, 2020

“This unilateral decision by Pakistan is highly condemnable and runs against the spirit of the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor as also the religious sentiments of the Sikh community at large,” it said.

“Such actions only expose the reality of the Pakistani government and its leadership’s tall claims of preserving and protecting the rights and welfare of the religious minority communities,” the MEA said.

Shubhajit Roy

Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 25 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting on foreign affairs for more than 17 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism ‘2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury’s special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban’s capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read More

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