{"id":17691,"date":"2025-04-17T04:20:28","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T04:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=17691"},"modified":"2025-04-17T04:20:30","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T04:20:30","slug":"thousands-of-sikh-pilgrims-visit-pakistan-to-celebrate-vaisakhi-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=17691","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of Sikh pilgrims visit Pakistan to celebrate Vaisakhi festival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thousands of Sikhs celebrate Vaisakhi in Pakistan, with 6,500 Indian pilgrims visiting holy sites across the country.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sikhs
Sikh pilgrims perform rituals at the shrine of Gurdwara Janam Asthan in Nankana Sahib, some 75km (46 miles) west of Lahore. [KM Chaudary\/AP Photo]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a>Thousands of Indian Sikhs visited Pakistan to celebrate Vaisakhi, a harvest festival that marks the start of the Sikh New Year and is mostly observed in the country\u2019s Punjab province and northern India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pakistani authorities this year granted more than 6,500 visas to Indian Sikhs, a higher number than in previous years. Visas to travel between the two countries are normally difficult to obtain, but the governments have a special arrangement that allows pilgrims to visit shrines and places of worship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main Vaisakhi ceremony was held in Nankana Sahib in Punjab province, where the founder of the Sikh faith, Guru Nanak, was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gurdwara Janam Asthan is one of nine Sikh places of worship at Nankana Sahib, which is located some 75km (46 miles) west of Lahore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rinko Kaur travelled from India\u2019s western Gujarat state, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is from. She said she was initially hesitant about visiting Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy family warned me about going \u2026 and said I should be with a group to be safe,\u201d Kaur said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But she said the people were welcoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI saw people coming out of their houses, waving as a welcome gesture. We feel as if we are celebrities,\u201d said Kaur, who plans to visit other Sikh holy sites in Pakistan in the coming days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many Sikh holy sites are located in Pakistan after the British partitioned the subcontinent into separate nations in 1947 following two centuries of colonial rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Vaisakhi was a time of \u201cgreat joy for farmers\u201d. The festival also encourages a spirit of hope, unity and renewal that inspires and unites communities, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reference Link:- https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/gallery\/2025\/4\/14\/thousands-of-sikh-pilgrims-visit-pakistan-to-celebrate-vaisakhi-festival<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thousands of Sikhs celebrate Vaisakhi in Pakistan, with 6,500 Indian pilgrims visiting holy sites across the country. Thousands of Indian Sikhs visited Pakistan to celebrate Vaisakhi, a harvest festival that marks the start of the Sikh New Year and is mostly observed in the country\u2019s Punjab province and northern India. Pakistani authorities this year granted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[132,105,16333,36,8790,16336,928,16332,16334,16337,16331,16335],"class_list":["post-17691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sample-category","tag-economy","tag-geopolitics-2","tag-indian-sikhs-visited-pakistan","tag-pakistan","tag-religious-freedom","tag-religious-harmony","tag-sikh","tag-sikh-festival-2","tag-sikhs-comm-unity-from-uk","tag-thousands-of-sikh-pilgrims-visit-pakistan-to-celebrate-vaisakhi-festival","tag-vaisakhi-mela","tag-canada-and-america"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17693,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17691\/revisions\/17693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}