Punjab DGP Dinkar Gupta in Panchkula Friday. (Express photo by Jaipal Singh)

Raising questions over Pakistan’s intent in agreeing to throw open the Kartarpur Corridor, the Punjab Police chief, Dinkar Gupta, Friday said the visa-free passage cleared for Sikh pilgrims was “a huge security challenge from terrorism point of view”. Claiming that there were reasons why the Corridor was not opened all these years, Director General of Punjab Police said that some elements based in the neighbouring country were “trying to woo the pilgrims and making overtures to them”.

“Kartarpur offers a potential that you send somebody in the morning as an ordinary chap and by evening he comes back as trained terrorist actually. You are there for six hours, you can be taken to a firing range, you can be taught to make an IED,” Gupta said.

He was speaking at The Indian Express Idea Exchange in Panchkula.

The Corridor, connecting Dera Baba Nanak in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district with the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan’s Kartarpur, the final resting place of Guru Nanak Dev, was thrown open on November 9, three days ahead of the 550th birth anniversary of the Sikhism founder. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the portion of the Corridor falling on the Indian side while his counterpart Imran Khan inaugurated the part on the Pakistani side.

“It is a huge concern...that is why it was not opened for all these years. I was in Intelligence Bureau for eight years...I used to handle it over there. The feeling was that it (the Corridor) will be a huge security challenge. But after that as the community wanted it, the disapora wanted it, it was decided why cannot this dream be realised. So all those security concerns were put on the backburner. And we also gave our go ahead,” the DGP said.

Gupta said that he was in Delhi last week where there was brainstorming session on Kartarpur Corridor. “They (Pakistan based elements and agencies) have already tried to find potential (people for radicalisation). People who are going there, they are trying to woo them, making overtures to them. We are also concerned about the phones, which are going there. Earlier the traffic to Pakistan was only a few jathas at Baisakhi and gurpurab. (now) The footfall, the numbers are huge. This is huge potential. So, it is a security challenge,” Gupta added replying to a query on whether Pakistan’s offer to do away with passport combined with Referendum 2020 posed a security challenge.

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People on their first visit to Kartarpur Sahib gurudwara on November 9, 2019. (Express photo by Neeraj Priyadarshi)

Asked about India getting an ingress as well through Kartarpur Corridor, Gupta said, “We are a very benign State...It is a security concern for both the countries”.

The DGP’s views echoed sentiments expressed by Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, who in the past had maintained that while he was extremely happy, as a Sikh, at the opening of the Corridor, “the threat it posed to our country could not be ignored”.

Amarinder had repeatedly warned that Pakistan was trying to win the sympathies of Sikhs by opening the Corridor to further the Referendum 2020 agenda, an ISI-backed campaign by the foreign-based organisation Sikhs for Justice for a separate Sikh state. SFJ has been banned by Indian government.

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