Congress chief, Partap Singh Bajwa, on Thursday proposed the sacred Kartarpur Sahib shrine situated across Ravi in Pakistan opposite Dera Baba Nanak of Gurdaspur district should be exchanged with some other Indian territory. He said for a long time, the Sikh devotees had been longing for free access to this shrine where the founder of the Sikh faith, Guru Nanak Dev, spent last years of entire life. Presently, the devotees pay their obeisance to the shrine from this side of the river where a special platform has been erected. He said devotees had been demanding free access to the shrine via a corridor so that they don’t have to go through visa formalities.
The PPCC chief said he had took up this issue with PM Manmohan in May, 2012 and suggested that this territory be exchanged with some Indian territory which is across Ravi in the same sector. He said the people living in such pockets were facing a lot of hardships as the only means to connect with the mainland was by boats. This area remained cut off from India during monsoons. Not only that even basic facilities were lacking in the absence of a direct connect. Bajwa said there was a precedent for such exchange of territories after partition. He said the Hussainiwala area across Satluj where the samadhis of martyrs Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were located had been transferred to Pakistan. It was only years later in 1962 that this territory was handed over by Pakistan to India. He said his opponent from the BJP in the lS election, Vinod Khanna, had been promising people to develop Gurdaspur and Pathankot as a tourist hub without coming up with any concrete proposal. He said here was a concrete proposal which, apart from the aspirations of the devotees, would act as a catalyst to boost the economy of this region.