Islamabad:The Foreign Office on Thursday rejected Indian concerns about Sikh Yatris visiting Pakistan for pilgrimage and said that they were fully facilitated during the trips.
"Pakistan provides maximum facilitation to the Sikh Yatris from all over the world, including India, for visiting their religious sites in Pakistan," Foreign Office Spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said at the weekly media briefing, the Dawn reported on Friday.
Indian Ministry of Home Affairs had in a letter denying Sikhs permission to undertake the trip said that keeping in view the "capacity of health infrastructure in Pakistan" it could not allow such a large group to tour the country for a week.
The Indian Home Ministry also expressed concerns about the "safety" of the group because of what it said "considerable threat".
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Chaudhri recalled that Pakistan had opened the largest and the holiest Sikh shrine in Kartarpur Sahib to facilitate Sikh Yatris. "The Sikh as well as the international community, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who while visiting Kartarpur described it as 'Corridor of Hope', have immensely appreciated this landmark initiative of Pakistan," he maintained.