Kartarpur Corridor

 

History and introduction: -

Kantipur gurdwara is a religious place for Sikhs, that where the founder of their religion Guru Nanak lived 18 years of his life and also drew his last beath. During hasty Indo-Pak partition this location ended up within Pakistan borders. Against which Sikhs protested but to no avail. In 2018 after coming into power, Imran khan, as a prime minister of Pakistan gave a special status to this site such that Sikhs from the Indian side can visit this religious location without visa. Sikhs give credit for this to friendship of Imran khan and Navjot Singh Sidhu and consider it as a symbol of peace between Pakistan and India. The political effect of this Imran khan move has proven to be better than expected, it helped to improve the Pakistan image on the global level as a peace-loving nation. This initiative created a soft corner for Pakistan in heart of many Indians especially Sikhs across the globe.

This place is also open for other people as well, people from both countries can go to visit it. More than three thousand tourists visit this place every day, and in even bigger numbers on weekends and even greater on religious events.

Infrastructure: -

The infrastructure of Kartarpur was upgraded after upraising its status. It has huge building, completely white which can accommodate thousands of people. All the old Important infrastructure is also kept preserved such as the well that guru Nanak used, the land he used to agriculture, they have also preserved the things that guru Nanak used in his daily life for the people to see. Many people other than Sikhs visit this place just to see it beauty and to meet the people from other side of border. This is the only place in Pakistan where you can meet people from across border physically. This place also has top level security to make sure that no visitor goes outside of authorized area.

Services

They have also built a huge langar Khanna which provide food for the visitors free of cost and mostly people work there for free, just to serve the other. Kartarpur Gurdwara also own a lot of land in its surrounding, approximately 340 (kille). A lot of food served there is grown on its own land. There are quite a few tour guides who guide the tourist around the sacred locations. Tour guides are all Pakistani Sikhs and are not allowed to receive any tips. There are swimming pools where yatrees take bath before entering the premises of gurdwara because it is the Sikh practice that they don’t enter gurdwara without complete ablution if they have eaten meat of egg because they believe that it is disrespectful to their religion.

 Tourist and Its Global Impact: -

As the Sikh’s are spread across the globe so a lot of people abroad get to know about this, and it has become a tourist spot for all the travelers, vloggers and influencers. You can find a lot of videos on internet where you will find foreign influencers interacting with the Pakistani staff at kartarpur to show that how welcoming they are. You will find all the Sikh’s praising Imran Khan for this initiative and the attitude of the Pakistanis there who visit Kartarpur, this changes the images that was portrays on media that Pakistanis hate Indian and so-so.

Booking a Tour: -

A lot for tour agencies provides a day tour to kartarpur, you can visit tour.pk and find a reasonable tour package from Lahore. They have also started tour package from Islamabad to kartarpur for just 4000 rupees. They offer the most reasonable tour packages you can find so please go visit it.