CHANDIGARH: Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has called the opening of the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor a big conspiracy hatched by the Pakistan army. In a press release, the CM said the opening of the corridor was clearly a gameplan of the ISI, considering Pak Army General Qamar Javed Bajwa had broken the news of opening to Navjot Singh Sidhu before Imran Khan was sworn in as Prime Minister.
He said the neighbouring country said that Pakistan was attempting to revive militancy in Punjab and everyone should be cautious about its overtures. Captain Amarinder also said that the whole Sidhu situation was hyped unnecessarily and those raising the topic had clearly failed to see ISI's plan the whole time. Demand for opening of the corridor was pending since partition as several holy Sikh shrines – Sri Nankana Sahib, Sri Panja Sahib, Dera Sahib and Kartarpur Sahib, were left in Pakistan. Former prime ministers like Indira Gandhi and Dr Manmohan Singh had taken up the issue before. Amarinder himself had raised the issue with his Pakistan Punjab counterpart Parvez Elahi and with the then president Pervez Musharraf during his previous tenure as the chief minister.
He also lashed at the Opposition Badals for branding Sidhu as Khan's stooge. He dismissed it, calling it nothing more than a credit war. Singh also lambasted the Akalis and the BJP central leadership for indulging in unwarranted controversy over his relation with Sidhu, diverting public attention from the core issue of Pakistan’s continued and deliberated perpetration of terror activities in the state. Singh also said that Imran Khan was undoubtedly making efforts to bring peace and harmony with India, but at the same time, he should prevail upon the top brass of Pakistani Army to ensure that “killing of our soldiers at the borders stopped immediately.”
