report in Dawn, July 30th, 2019
LAHORE: The Sikh diaspora has baulked at Punjab Governor Chaudhry Sarwar’s assurance of giving 14 times more land for preservation around the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur.
In a letter to the governor, American Sikh Council’s office-holders Dr Gurdas Singh, Mrs Jasbir Kaur and Kavneet Singh, president, vice president and chief advocacy officer, respectively, on behalf of the world Sikh community bemoaned that multiplying three-acre Gurdwara complex 14 times to make it 42 acres big on the Guru’s own fields is burying his legacy fields in stone and marble.
They say Baba Nanak Ji had tilled 104-acre fields with his own hands, thus the very soil is sacred to 100 million Nanak lovers from around the world and is their living history.
“Burying that sacred land under marble and stone completely eliminates any chance of archaeological revival of artifacts and reconstruction of history associated with Baba Nanak.”
Demanding that the 104 acres outside the extended 42-acre complex be declared as construction-free zone, they claim that over 171 acres of the land around the Gurdwara was owned by the trust as per Jamabandi of 1922-25 and that the Sikh Sangat from Sialkot and Narowal left thousands of acres of more land to the Gurdwara before leaving for India as refugees during the Partition.
They say when Gurdwara Kartarpur reopened to international Sangat after 2000, they began re-purchasing the land from the locals to re-establish farming there as Guru Ji would have done it. Close to 45 acres was used for farming and orchards were replanted there, they say, adding that “a piece of land already owned by the Gurdwara cannot be gifted to it.”https://www.dawn.com/news/1496913/kartarpur-sikhs-oppose-construction-on-adjacent-land
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