Pakistan on Thursday summoned an Indian High Commission diplomat in Islamabad to convey that a model’s “bareheaded photoshoot” at Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur was an “isolated incident”, PTI reported.
The statement comes two days after India summoned Pakistan’s charge d’affaires in Delhi to express concern about the “desecration of the sanctity” of Gurdwara Darbar Sahib after the model posed for photos there last week. The pictures were also shared by a clothing brand.
The gurdwara, built in Pakistan’s Kartarpur town where Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of Sikhism, is believed to have died in 1539, is one of the holiest shrines for Sikhs.
A corridor from India was built to this shrine in 2019 so that Indians could access it without having to secure a visa. The Kartarpur corridor also connects the Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India’s Gurdaspur district. However, Pakistani Sikhs need a visa to visit the shrine in India.
On Thursday, Pakistan’s foreign office said that a senior Indian diplomat was told that the photoshoot incident at Kartarpur was “swiftly addressed and clarified”.
“Pakistan accords [the] highest primacy to the rights of the minorities and sanctity of religious places and revered sites of every community is ensured in Pakistan,” the foreign office said in a statement. “Indian authorities must focus on ensuring effective protection of their own minorities and places of worship from instances of desecration, hate crimes and mob lynching.”
Earlier this week, India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi had said that the “reprehensible incident” had deeply hurt the sentiments of the Sikh community in India and across the world.
Manjinder Singh Sirsa, the head of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, had said that the model’s behaviour was unacceptable. Sirsa called on the government of Pakistan to stop “the trend of treating Sri Kartarpur Sahib as a picnic spot by Pakistani people”. However, Sirsa who was earlier with the Shiromani Akali Dal resigned from the post on Wednesday, hours before joining the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Meanwhile, the model who featured in the photoshoot issued an apology on Tuesday, saying that it was not her intention to hurt anyone’s sentiment.
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