Today is the 550th Prakash Parv of Adi Guru Nanak Dev Ji of Sikhs and a large number of people of Sikh community have reached Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan via Kartarpur Corridor on this occasion. However, due to the scam in Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank, 1950 Sikhs of Maharashtra could not go to Kartarpur. A leader of the Sikh community has claimed this.
Due to the bank scam, the hard earned money of many people is trapped and due to the financial crisis due to this, many people of the Sikh community could not go to Pakistan. Significantly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the Kartarpur Corridor and he flagged off the first batch of 500 Sikh devotees.
This corridor, about 4 km long, connects the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib located in Kartarpur, Pakistan to the Dera Baba Nanak Shrine in Gurdaspur, Punjab, India. Guru Nanak Dev had spent the last years of his life in Kartarpur.
Significantly, after the alleged scam of around Rs 4,355 crore in PMC, the Reserve Bank of India had imposed all kinds of restrictions on it. Due to this, the limit of withdrawal of only 1000 rupees from the bank was fixed, due to which the customers suffered a lot, although later this limit was increased in several pieces to Rs 50,000.
Around 2,000 Sikhs from Mumbai, Nashik, Nanded, Navi Mumbai and Thane wanted to visit the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib of Pakistan. Hardev Singh Saini, a member of the Gurdwara committee in Kurla, told news agency PTI that the yatra has been organized by a local organization Nirman Sevak Jatha.
He claimed, 'We were in the process of submitting their details online on the required website, that in the meantime, many people refused to go due to the PMC bank crisis. Out of these nearly 2000 people, only 50 people could arrange to go. Due to the lack of money arrangement due to the PMC bank scam, all the other people canceled their visits.
Ravinder Kaur Saini, a customer of PMC told that she has three accounts in the bank. He said that he is very disappointed to not be a part of this historical pilgrimage. He said, 'We have been waiting to be part of this historic pilgrimage for the past several years, but unfortunately due to the PMC crisis we did not get a chance to go there.'
Preetpal Singh Seth, another member of the Kurla Gurdwara committee, said that the PMC account holders were not even able to help each other, as people themselves lacked cash. So far, the promoters of HDIL and many top officials of the bank have been arrested in the PMC scam.
