MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan, 5 April 2005 — The man chosen to drive the first bus linking divided Kashmir says his selection for the job was a blessing from God and he is thrilled to be playing a part in history.
Raja Pervez Khan, from the Pakistani side of Kashmir, says he has no long-lost relatives on the Indian side, but he is proud to be driving the vehicle that will reunite families after decades of separation.
“I never thought that I would be the one to drive a historic bus. It is because of Allah’s grace that I have been chosen,” Pervez told Reuters in Pakistani Kashmir, his hands raised in prayer.
Pakistan and India, which have fought three wars since 1947, two of them over Muslim-majority Kashmir, are due to launch a bus linking their parts of the Himalayan region on Thursday.
The service, one of the most concrete signs of improving ties between the nuclear-armed neighbors, will link the town of Muzaffarabad, in Pakistani Kashmir, with Srinagar, in Indian Kashmir, 170 km away.
Pervez, who has been a bus driver for 16 years, was chosen at the weekend from nearly a dozen candidates, after a driving test and interview. He will drive the bus from Muzaffarabad, up to the dividing line between the two sides, known as the line of control, where, until a 2003 cease-fire, Indian and Pakistani forces regularly exchanged fire.
Pervez’s 30 passengers will get down from his bus at the village of Chakothi, cross the Line of Control and get on a bus on the other side to complete their journey to Srinagar, the heart of Kashmir.
A bus from Srinagar will bring the same number of people to Muzaffarabad.
The resumption of the bus service, broken off after the first India-Pakistan war in the 1940s, has delighted Kashmiris on both sides of the divide, including Pervez.
“I’m going to reunite separated families, this is the real happiness for me,” he said.
Thousands of Kashmiris have applied to make the journey and many hope the new bus will be a first step to a real solution of the Kashmir dispute, at the heart of the hostility between India and Pakistan.
Separatist rebels have been battling security forces in Indian Kashmir since 1989. India has long accused Pakistan of aiding the rebels. Pakistan denies arming them but says it provides moral and diplomatic support for the Kashmiri “freedom struggle”.
Not everyone is happy to see the new bus.
Militant factions warned people last week not to use the bus, saying the service was not in the interests of their struggle. But many ordinary Kashmiris have dismissed the threat and vowed to go ahead with their travel plans.
Pakistan yesterday described as “uncalled for” threats by militant groups to disrupt the bus service. Foreign Office spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani, at a press briefing, said he hoped that no harm would be done to travelers who were “genuine Kashmiris”. Pervez also showed no sign of worry about security.
