AAP leader demands lifting of passport condition for 'darshan-e-didar' of Kartarpur Sahib

Senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Harpal Singh Cheema on Wednesday demanded that the central government should simplify the process of 'darshan-e-didar' of Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan, by lifting the mandatory passport condition.

In a statement issued from party headquarters here, Cheema, who is the leader of opposition in Punjab assembly, said the existing terms and conditions were a tad tough and tedious, depriving a vast majority of common people to visit the shrine through the Kartarpur corridor.

He said that the conditions should be simplified so that the devotees were not deprived of 'darshan' of the shrine.

Cheema described the mandatory shrine condition of passport as the major hurdle in the way of having 'darshan' of the shrine, due to which almost half of the desirous population had been debarred from paying obeisance, as they do not fulfill the passport condition laid out by the dispensation.

"Almost 60 per cent of the people of the state, a majority of them being poor and common people, do not possess passport as they are not able to have one due to financial constraints," Cheema said.

He demanded Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention in the matter to lift the statutory condition and press the Pakistan government to lift the passport condition to enable a large number of devotees to visit the Kartarpur Sahib shrine, where the Sikh faith founder Guru Nanak Dev spent his last days.

The Kartarpur corridor was made operational on November 9 and connects Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Punjab's Gurdaspur district in India with Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur in Narowal district of Pakistan's Punjab province.