India starts registration of Kartarpur pilgrims

New Delhi will send the list to Pakistan 10 days before departure date

ISLAMABAD: The Indian government on Sunday has started the registration of its Sikh pilgrims intending to reach Pakistan through the Kartarpur Corridor to visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib.

The intending pilgrims have to submit an online application a month prior to their visit. They will be informed about whether their application has been accepted or not 10 days before they are scheduled to arrive. The final list will be issued four days before the date of departure.

The Indian government decided to begin the registration after receiving Pakistan’s dispatch.

The corridor is visa-free but Indian residents will have to provide data of their passports when their application is accepted. Indian citizens will have to submit a $20 fee.

Earlier, India had announced that it would start accepting online applications from October 1 but the move was delayed.

After the online registration, Indian officials will send the list of pilgrims to Pakistan 10 days before the departure date. Pakistan will return it to India after an inquiry and the final list will be issued four days prior to departure.

Kartarpur Corridor will remain open throughout the year. The Kartarpur crossing will link Dera Baba Nanak in Indian Punjab with Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan.

The corridor, once operational, will provide visa-free access to Sikhs from India to their holiest Shrine located inside Pakistan. This will also be the first visa-free corridor between the two nuclear-armed neighbours since their independence in 1947.

The proposal has been in the works for over two decades. However, it only began to take shape when in August the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan announced that Pakistan was planning to open the corridor.

In November last year, PM Imran performed the groundbreaking ceremony to build the four-kilometre long corridor at Kartarpur. The ceremony was attended by the premier’s friend and former Indian cricketer Navjaot Singh Sidhu.

Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib, considered the holiest place in Sikh religion because it is the last resting place of Baba Guru Nanak, is located in Narowal, only 4 kilometres away from the Indian border.

The shrine is visible from the Indian side of the border and every day a larger number of Sikh devotees gather to perform Darshan or sacred viewings of the site.