Sikh pilgrims visit the shrine of Guru Nanak Dev, at Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, Pakistan. (PTI photo)

CHANDIGARH: Punjab leader of opposition (LoP) and AAP leader Harpal Singh Cheema on Thursday demanded that the government should simplify the process of paying obeisance at Kartarpur Sahib , by relaxing the mandatory passport condition .

In a press statement, Cheema said the existing conditions were a tad tough and tedious, depriving a vast majority of common people to visit the shrine through the Kartarpur corridor , urging that the conditions be simplified so that they were not deprived of ‘darshan’ of the shrine.

Cheema described the mandatory condition of passport as the major hurdle in the way of having ‘darshan’ of the shrine, due to which almost half of the desirous population had been debarred from ‘darshan’ of the shrine, as they don’t fulfill the condition of passport laid out by the dispensation.

He said, “Almost 60 per cent of the people of the state, a majority of them poor and common people, do not possess passport as they are not able to have one due to financial constraints.”

Cheema sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi ’s intervention in the matter to lift the statutory condition and press the Pakistan government to lift the passport condition to enable a large number of devotees to visit the shrine where the first Sikh master, Guru Nanak Dev spent his last days.

