Sikh group urges Sharif for corridor to shrine

Amritsar, May 25 (IANS) A Sikh group urged Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to announce during his visit to India Monday the creation of a four-km corridor to the Sikh shrine of Kartarpur Sahib located in Pakistan.

Radical Sikh group Dal Khalsa urged Sharif to allow a walkers' corridor to the Sikh shrine, located four km inside the Pakistan territory from the India-Pakistan border near Dera Baba Nanak in Indian Punjab's Gurdaspur district.

Sharif is arriving in New Delhi Monday for the oath-taking ceremony of Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi.

The gurdwara in Kartarpur (in Pakistan) is associated with the first Sikh guru and founder of the religion, Guru Nanak Dev.

Dal Khalsa leader Satnam Singh Poanta Sahib welcomed Sharif's visit to India and said the long-pending demand for a corridor to Kartarpur Sahib be accepted.

He said that the demand for the corridor was first raised in 1998 to enable Sikh pilgrims to have freedom to visit the gurdwara there without a visa or passport.

A group of Sikh devotees has been praying every month at the international border facing towards the Kartarpur Sahib shrine for the last several years, he said.

He also sought opening up of the Attari-Wagah land border and setting up of a Pakistan consulate in Amritsar.