The Kartarpur Corridor is staying shut, and this time it’s official. The Central government told the Lok Sabha on July 31, 2026 that the pilgrimage route to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib will remain suspended, citing ongoing security concerns. The statement came just days after NAPA, a Sikh diaspora organisation in North America, publicly asked the Centre to reconsider the indefinite closure. For the lakhs of devotees who have been waiting to cross over since the corridor shut down in May 2025, Parliament just gave its clearest answer yet, and it’s still a no.
What did the centre say about the Kartarpur Corridor?
Responding to a question in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh said the current security situation makes it necessary for the Kartarpur Corridor to stay suspended. He confirmed that the government has received several representations from Sikh religious groups asking for the route to reopen.
Even so, the minister did not offer any date or roadmap for resuming pilgrim movement. In short, the door is still closed, and nobody’s saying exactly when it might open again.
Why was the Kartarpur Corridor closed in the first place?
The Kartarpur Corridor was suspended with effect from May 7, 2025, in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack and the sharp downturn in India-Pakistan relations that followed. Before that, the corridor had run smoothly since its inauguration in November 2019, letting Sikh pilgrims cross visa-free into Pakistan to visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, the shrine where Guru Nanak Dev spent his final years. It has faced shutdowns before too, including a long pause during the Covid-19 pandemic and a brief closure after flooding in the Ravi river in 2023.
This time, though, the closure has already stretched well over a year with no end in sight.
What is NAPA asking the government to do?
NAPA, which represents Punjabi and Sikh communities across North America, has called the Kartarpur Corridor a symbol of peace and people-to-people connection between India and Pakistan. The organisation says the prolonged suspension has caused real distress among Sikh devotees around the world, many of whom see a visit to Kartarpur Sahib as a once-in-a-lifetime moment of faith. NAPA’s appeal is essentially this: security concerns are understandable, but an indefinite closure with zero clarity is hard on the community waiting to make that journey.
Where does the Kartarpur Corridor story go from here?
- The bilateral agreement between India and Pakistan on the corridor has been extended until 2029, so the framework for reopening still exists on paper
- The Centre has not announced any fresh diplomatic talks with Pakistan specifically on reopening the corridor
- Restoration will likely depend on how the broader India-Pakistan security situation evolves
- Sikh organisations, including NAPA, are expected to keep raising the issue until there’s more clarity
So where does that leave things?
For now, the Kartarpur Corridor remains a closed chapter. The Centre has made its security-first stance clear, but with the India-Pakistan agreement still valid until 2029 and groups like NAPA continuing to push. Whether that happens in the next few months or takes years is the real question devotees are stuck asking.