SAD demands scrapping of passport mandate, service fee for Indian pilgrims visiting Kartarpur Sahib

New Delhi: With the re-opening of the Kartarpur Corridor, the demands for passport-free travel to Kartarpur Sahib and waiving off US$20 service fee, starting to emerge again.

According to the sources, the issue could be taken up during the bilateral meeting between India and Pakistan owing to the religious sentiments attached to the pilgrimage and the pressure mounted by the Sikh bodies.

SAD(D) president Paramjit Singh Sarna told Zee News on Monday that he had written a letter to the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar urging him to talk to Pakistan to waive off the passport mandate for travel to Kartarpur Sahib.

“Not just the Sikhs but tens of millions of other followers of Baba Nanak living in India don’t have a passport and they will not be able to travel across the border to fulfil their religious aspiration” observed Sarna adding that the SAD(D) had urged the External Affairs Minister to take up the issue with Pakistan government through the diplomatic channel to do away with the clause of possessing passport while travelling to Pakistan to pay obeisance at Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, Kartarpur Sahib.

“Let the Baba Nanak Naam Leva from our country be allowed to cross the border for the historical shrine through this special passage at least for a day’s visit,” Sarna wrote.

Earlier on December 1, the officiating Jathedar of Sikh’s supreme temporal seat Giani Harpreet Singh had also asked both the Indian and Pakistani governments to give relaxation in travel condition of possession of passport while visiting Kartarpur Sahib. ​

The leader also urged the government to do away with the service fee of US$20 levied by Pakistan on every Indian visitor travelling to Kartarpur Sahib via Kartarpur Corridor. Giani Harpreet Singh was on a visit to Kartarpur Sahib where he took up the issue.

The political parties here have termed the charging of US$20 service fee by Pakistan as ‘Jazia (tax imposed on non-Muslims) and had been unanimously raising the issue with the Centre government. 

Even the former chief minister of Punjab Captain Amarinder Singh had suggested Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee pay the service fee from its own resources.