{"id":34348,"date":"2025-11-01T12:07:49","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T06:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=34348"},"modified":"2025-11-01T12:07:49","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T06:22:49","slug":"indian-sikhs-given-visas-for-festival-in-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/indian-sikhs-given-visas-for-festival-in-pakistan\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian Sikhs given visas for festival in Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>Indian Sikh pilgrims have been issued visas for neighbouring Pakistan, the first major allowance after travel between the arch-rival nations was frozen during conflict in May.<\/p>\n<p>There was no immediate response from New Delhi, but Indian newspapers reported on Saturday that the government would allow &#8220;selected&#8221; groups to travel for a 10-day festival to celebrate the founder of the Sikh faith.<\/p>\n<p>Tensions remain high between New Delhi and Islamabad, after deadly clashes between the nuclear-armed rivals in May &#8212; the worst fighting since 1999.<\/p>\n<p>More than 70 people were killed in missile, drone and artillery exchanges &#8212; and the land crossing was shut to general traffic.<\/p>\n<p>The Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi said it had issued &#8220;over 2,100 visas to Sikh pilgrims from India&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Tens of thousands of Sikh pilgrims are expected to flock to Pakistan&#8217;s city of Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak.<\/p>\n<p>Nankana Sahib lies 85 kilometres (52 miles) west of the border with India. Celebrations are expected to begin on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>The frontier was a colonial creation at the violent end of British rule in 1947 which sliced the sub-continent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.<\/p>\n<p>The Attari-Wagah land border between the countries &#8212; straddling the state of Punjab on either side &#8212; was shuttered to general traffic in May.<\/p>\n<p>The border is the site of a daily flag ceremony, where visitors come to watch a sunset parade of strutting soldiers on each side.<\/p>\n<p>Conflict broke out in May after New Delhi accused Islamabad of backing an attack targeting tourists on April 22 in Indian-administered Kashmir, claims Islamabad rejected.<br \/>\n&#8212;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Indian Sikh pilgrims have been issued visas for neighbouring Pakistan, the first major allowance after travel between the arch-rival nations was frozen during conflict in May. There was no immediate response from New Delhi, but Indian newspapers reported on Saturday that the government would allow &#8220;selected&#8221; groups to travel for a 10-day festival to celebrate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34348"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34350,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34348\/revisions\/34350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}