[image: Sushma Swaraj asks PM Imran to explain his FM’s ‘googly’ remarks]NEWDELHI – Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj seems frustratedover the Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi remarks on theKartarpur border inauguration and arrival of Indian Ministers in Pakistan.Swaraj on Saturday urged Prime Minister Imran Khan to must clarify ForeignMinister Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s recent ‘googly’ remarks, the IndianExternal Affairs Minister demanded this during a press conference in Jaipur.
Sambit Patra, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson, had alsolambasted Pakistan government over Qureshi’s “derogatory remarks”. He saidthe apparent ‘googly’ played by Pakistan on Kartarpur Corridor has exposedthe PM Imran Khan-led Pakistani government. “The usage of words like googlyhas exposed Pakistan.
The Pakistan Foreign Office released a statement saying the KartarpurCorridor initiative was taken solely to fulfill the longstanding wishes of“our Sikh brethren” and criticised the “negative propaganda campaign”against the historic move.
“We are deeply dismayed at the relentless negative propaganda campaignbeing waged by a section of the Indian media against Pakistan on the‘Kartarpur Corridor’ Initiative,” the Foreign Office said in a statement.
Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s statement at a function on Thursday claiming thatKhan had “bowled a googly” queered Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s peace pitch. AtPakistan’s invitation, Indian ministers had traveled to Islamabad for theKartarpur ground-breaking ceremony.
“The world watched, Pakistan watched, that PM Imran Khan bowled a googly atKartarpur. As a result of the googly, India, that had refused to engagewith Pakistan, had to send two ministers to Pakistan to engage. We arehappy they came, as ours is a message of peace,” Qureshi had told anaudience of lawmakers and ruling party supporters at a function to mark 100days of the Khan government.
Though only hours earlier, Qureshi, while addressing a group of Indianjournalists invited to Pakistan to cover the Kartarpur ceremony, had saidjust the opposite: “Let me clarify, the Kartarpur gesture, believe me, hadno googly hidden in it.”
The much-awaited corridor will connect Darbar Sahib in Pakistan’s Kartarpur– the final resting place of Sikh faith’s founder Guru Nanak Dev – withDera Baba Nanak shrine in India’s Gurdaspur district and facilitatevisa-free movement of Indian Sikh pilgrims, who will have to just obtain apermit to visit Kartarpur Sahib, which was established in 1522 by GuruNanak Dev.