NEW DELHI: The Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee on Thursday wrote to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, objecting to Pakistan’s decision of transferring the management of Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara from Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (PSGPC) to a non-Sikh body.
In its letter, the committee said the decision was direct interference in gurdwara affairs and urged Union Minister Jaishankar to take up the matter with the Pakistan government immediately. A DSGMC delegation led by its president Manjinder Singh Sirsa also met Joint Secretary (MEA) J P Singh about it.
“Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib is a historical place where Guru Nanak Dev Ji breathed his last. Sentiments of the Sikh community are attached to it,” the DSGMC said. The Pakistan government transferred the management and maintenance of Kartarpur Sahib from PSGPC, a body run by the minority Sikh community in Pakistan, to a Project Management Unit under the Evacuee Trust Property Board, which is a non-Sikh body.
Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara is located in Pakistan’s Narowal district across the river Ravi, about four kilometres from the Dera Baba Nanak shrine. 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, and said 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 from the PSGPC to the administrative control of the Evacuee Trust Property Board, a non-Sikh body.
In November of last year, the two bordering countries threw open a corridor linking Dera Baba Sahib in Gurdaspur in India with Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan, in a historic people-to-people initiative never seen before.