India presses for visa-free corridor to Kartarpur pilgrims

The talks held on Thursday between India and Pakistan at Attari were "constructive" and they were primarily aimed at facilitating the visit of Indian pilgrims to Gurudwara Kartarpur Sahib through a dedicated corridor in a smooth and easy manner, an MEA statement claimed.

Both sides discussed in detail the various provisions of the draft agreement.

"We have also emphasized from our side that in the spirit of this Kartarpur Sahib Corridor, this corridor should be absolutely visa-free. There should not be any additional encumbrances in the form of any additional documentation or procedure so that the basic spirit of allowing very easy and smooth access to a large number of pilgrims on a daily basis is conveniently realised," SCL Das, joint secretary in the home ministry and leader of the Indian delegation said at Attari.

"We have from our side very strongly emphasised on the need to allow devotees those who want to travel on foot, as this is a very important pilgrimage, so they should be allowed to travel on foot to the holy shrine," said he.

The Pakistani side has "assured" India that they would consider some of those and revert back.

Kartarpur is a site where Guru Nanak Dev lived for the final 18 years of his life.

The Indian side has pressed on the need for arranging the visit of at least 5,000 pilgrims per day, to begin with, in phase 1 of the project.

The pilgrims should also include not only Indian nationals but People of Indian Origin as well.

India has also strongly urged them to allow these visits because people from all over the country and all over the world will be coming for all 7 days of the week all throughout the year without any break, particularly provides for a much higher size of visiting pilgrims by another 10,000 on special days, like Guru Purab, Baisakhi etc.