Amritsar Man Goes To Kartarpur To Meet His Girlfriend From Lahore, Gets Deported

When the Kartarpur Corridor was opened last month it was hailed as a new chapter in the relationship between the two neighboring countries. The corridor was the fulfillment of a long-standing dream of the Sikh community in India to visit the Darbar Sahib Gurdwara in Pakistan's Kartarpur which has a significant place in the history of the Sikh religion.

The corridor which was inaugurated on November 9, on the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak allowed Indian Sikhs a visa-free entry to Pakistan to visit the shrine. Ever since it was inaugurated thousands of Indian Sikhs have been using it every day to visit and pray at the holy shrine, where Guru Nanak spent the final days of his life.

Though the opening of the corridor was said as a step towards peace and improving the relations between India and Pakistan, something other than bilateral ties are also apparently blooming due to the corridor - cross border love.

Last week, an Indian Sikh youth who had gone to Kartarpur on a pilgrimage was deported from the country by the Pakistani authorities after he was found roaming around with a local girl.

Jatinder Singh, a resident of Amritsar had gone to Kartarpur on Wednesday on the pretext of offering prayers at the shrine. But he had another plan too - to meet his girlfriend, a Pakistani girl whom he met on Facebook. As planned, the couple met at the shrine after the girl, a Muslim paid Rs 200, the entry fee for Pakistani Muslims to visit the Gurdwara.

But things didn't go as planned for the couple who were roaming around in the Gurudwara complex. They were spotted by the Pakistani security officials who detained them for questioning. On being interrogated, the girl, a Lahore University student reportedly admitted that she had come to the Gurdwara to meet her Facebook boyfriend and that they wanted to get married.

AFP

Singh was later deported back to India by the Pakistani authorities who asked him to come back through Attari with a Visa if he wanted to get married.

According to reports, this is the second such incident being reported from Kartarpur in less than a month.

Last month, Manjit Kaur a Sikh girl from Rohtak in Haryana had gone to Pakistan through the Kartarpur corridor to meet her Pakistani boyfriend Awais Mukhtar. Like in the case of Singh, Kaur and her boyfriend were also caught by the Pakistani authorities and she was later sent back to her home country.