Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday termed the opening of the Kartarpur Corridor a conspiracy hatched by the Pakistan Army, saying Pakistan’s Army General Qamar Javed Bajwa had broken the news to Navjot Singh Sidhu even before Imran Khan was sworn in as their prime minister.
“The opening of the Kartarpur Corridor is clearly a game plan of the ISI,” the Chief Minister said, adding a bigger conspiracy seems to have been hatched by Pakistan Army against India. He admitted that Pakistan was attempting to revive militancy in Punjab and thus everyone should be wary of all of its overtures, no matter how grand they appear to be, an official release, quoting him, said.
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The Sidhu affair was being unnecessarily hyped and those raising it had clearly failed to see the ISI game plan, said Captain Amarinder, lashing out at the Akalis for branding the Punjab minister as stooge of the Pakistan prime minister.
Singh said the demand for opening of the Kartarpur Sahib corridor was pending since partition as several holy Sikh shrines (Sri Nankana Sahib, Sri Panja Sahib, Dera Sahib and Kartarpur Sahib) had been left in Pakistan. Even former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Manmohan Singh had taken up the issue of opening the Kartarpur corridor with Pakistan, he added.
Singh said he himself had raised the issue with his Pakistan Punjab counterpart Parvez Elahi and with the then President, Parvez Musharraf, during his previous tenure.
He said Imran Khan was undoubtedly making efforts to bring peace and harmony with India, but he should also prevail upon the top brass of Pakistani Army to ensure that killings of our soldiers at borders are stopped immediately.
On the issue of Navjot Sidhu’s visit to Pakistan for the ground-breaking ceremony, Amarinder said he had told Sidhu that he had declined the invite by writing a letter to the Pakistan Minister for foreign affairs, and had also shared a copy of the same on the social media.
He said Sidhu was a likeable person and he shared warm ties with even Sidhu’s parents when the cricketer-turned-minister’s father was President of District Congress unit, Patiala, and his mother Mohinder Kaur who was the Member of Parliament from Patiala.
(With Agency Inputs)
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