On a crisp fall morning in Amritsar, Jagjit Singh stood at the gates of his local Sikh temple clutching a folder thick with documents, identity papers, passport copies, and the pilgrimage forms he had painstakingly filled out since June.
Last month, his hopes had been dashed by an advisory from India’s Ministry of Home Affairs barring the pilgrimage following “Operation Sindoor.”
Like thousands of other Sikh devotees across Punjab, he had been preparing for months to make the sacred journey across the border to Sri Nankana Sahib Gurdwara in Pakistan, the birthplace of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the founder of Sikhism, for Prakash Purab, which celebrates the birth of the Guru.
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