NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday hoped the Kartarpur corridor would act as a bridge between the peoples of India and Pakistan that might lead to a better future as he referred to the fall of the Berlin Wall to underline the importance of people-to-people contact.
On the occasion of the birth anniversary of first Sikh Guru Nanak Dev, the prime minister referred to the Partition and said, “What has happened in 1947 has happened.”
He said the issues between the governments and the armies would continue and only time will show the way out.
Underlining the strength of people-to-people contact, the prime minister said,”Had anyone ever thought that the Berlin Wall would fall. May be with the blessings of Guru Nanak Devji, this Kartarpur corridor will not just remain a corridor, but act as a bridge between the peoples of the two countries.”
Modi was speaking at a function to mark the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev at the residence of Union Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal here.
He was felicitated with a ‘saropa’ and turban by Shiromani Aklai Dal president and former deputy chief minister of Punjab Sukhbir Singh Badal and president of Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) Manjit Singh GK at the function.
A long-pending demand of the Sikh community to build a religious corridor linking India’s border district of Gurdaspur with a historic gurudwara in Pakistan may finally be fulfilled with both the countries announcing that stretches would be developed in their respective areas.
In a significant decision, the Union Cabinet Thursday cleared a proposal to develop a corridor from Dera Baba Nanak in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district to the International Border to facilitate Indian pilgrims to visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur in Pakistan. PTI