देश
India summons Pakistan diplomat after Islamabad snatched away management of Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib from PSGPC
India on Friday summoned the Pakistan diplomat after Islamabad snatched away the management of Gurdwara Darbar Sahib at Kartarpur from the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (PSGPC). The talks with the diplomat lasted for over 20 minutes.
The Imran Khan-led Pakistan government officially took away the full control of the Gurdwara at Kartarpur in Punjab’s Narowal District from the PSGPC and gave it to Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB), a Muslim body. The ETPB manages religious properties and shrines of Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan.
On Thursday, slamming Pakistan’s move, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) wrote a letter to Pakistan High Commissioner. Fuming over the development, Sikh’s single largest representative body has asked Pakistan to give back the administrative control of the Gurdwara to PSGPC.
This is what Pakistan did? As reported by Zee News on November 4, the Pakistan Ministry of Religious Affairs (MoRA) on November 3 released the official order taking away the management rights from the PSGPC. The move came days ahead of the first anniversary of the inauguration of the historic Kartarpur Corridor on November 9.
Sikh community in India: The handing over of the management of Kartarpur Sahib to the newly constituted Project Management Unit (PMU) has irked the Sikh leadership in India as they said that it is “belittling the significance of Sikh’s own Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (PSGPC)”.
Reacting to the development across the border, SGPC president Gobind Singh Longowal said that earlier Gurdwara Darbar Sahib was under the administrative control of PSGPC and functioning was according to the Sikh code of conduct and Sikh rituals. “Now Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, Kartarpur became directly under the administrative control of ETPB which may affect the daily rituals performed according to Sikh code of conduct,” he said.
