Pak has Mecca, Medina for Sikhs: Prime Minister Imran Khan in Dubai
Dubai, Feb 10: Pakistan has the Mecca and Medina for the Sikhs and the country is opening up those sites for the minority community, Prime Minister Imran Khan said in the UAE on Sunday.
Prime Minister Khan in November last year laid the foundation stone for the corridor linking Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan's Kartarpur - the final resting place of Sikh faith's founder Guru Nanak Dev - to Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India's Gurdaspur district to facilitate visa-free movement of Indian Sikh pilgrims.
Khan is paying a day-long trip to the UAE to take part in the 7th edition of the World Government Summit on the invitation of Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum.
"We have the Mecca and Medina of the Sikhs... and we are just opening up those sites for Sikhs," Khan said.
Mecca and Medina are the two holiest sites in Islam.
"We have opened our visa regime. For the first time in Pakistan, we have 70 countries from where people can come and get visas at the airport," the prime minister said.
Khan said Pakistan has the best tourist potential even though at the moment it hardly has any tourism.
"Half the world's highest peaks are in Pakistan," he said, adding that the country has 1,000 kilometers of coastline.
Khan also said that Pakistan has the oldest historical monuments, probably as old as anywhere in the world.
"We have Indus Valley Civilization, which is 5,000 years old. We have Peshawar, the oldest living city in the world, 2,500 years old. Lahore and Multan are ancient cities.
"We have the Gandhara civilization, which was the cradle of Buddhist civilization, in the north of Islamabad. The biggest sleeping Buddha, 40 feet, is in Haripur. We have some of the greatest and highest number of Sufi shrines all over Pakistan," he said.
Khan said they are opening up the country for tourism.
Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan is located across the river Ravi, about four kilometres from the Dera Baba Nanak shrine. It was established by the Sikh Guru in 1522. The first Gurdwara, Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib, was built here, where Guru Nanak is said to have died.
The Kartarpur Corridor, which will facilitate the visa-free travel of Indian Sikh pilgrims to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, is expected to be completed soon.
Thousands of Sikh devotees from India visit Pakistan every year to celebrate the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak.
India had proposed the corridor to Pakistan around 20 years back.
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Have won in people’s court, says Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah on by-poll results
Bengaluru (PTI): Buoyed by the assembly election by-polls, which saw the ruling Congress sweeping in all the three seats, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday said he won in the ‘people’s court’.
He gave credit to the guarantee schemes for the party’s victory in the assembly bypolls in Sandur, Shiggaon and Channapatna.
“You know what Mahatma Gandhi said. He said people’s court is better than the courts. Now people’s court has given me its verdict,” Siddaramaiah told reporters.
This victory was significant for the Congress as the BJP and JD(S) formed an alliance, he explained.
“We won from Kalyana Karnataka (Sandur), Kittur Karnataka region (Shiggaon), and old Mysuru region (Channapatna). In all the places we won. So, this is very significant."
“After our government came to power about one and half years ago, the BJP made false allegations on me and my government. They also spread lies about our schemes,” Siddaramaiah said.
The CM is an accused in the MUDA site allotment scam where 14 sites in upmarket of Mysuru was allotted to his wife, Parvathi. After the controversy broke out, Parvathi returned the sites to MUDA.
He also came down heavily on the opposition BJP and JD(S) for their lies and ‘baseless allegations’.
The Chief Minister also took a swipe at JDS supremo H D Deve Gowda and his son Union Minister H D Kumaraswamy for "crying" in public during elections.
“Deve Gowda and his sons cry, but didn’t their heart melt when several women cried in the Prajwal Revanna case in Hassan?” he asked.
Former JD(S) MP and grandson of former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, Prajwal Revanna is in jail for allegedly sexually assaulting several women and filming them.
