ISLAMABAD/SRINAGAR, 23 June 2005 — Islamabad yesterday dismissed New Delhi’s complaints that a visit by moderate separatists from Indian Kashmir to Pakistan violated a travel agreement on a new bus service across the Himalayan region.

“We saw the visit as part of the peace process between Pakistan and India,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani said, rejecting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s criticism.

Manmohan said on Tuesday that Pakistan breached the pact earlier this month by allowing the delegation of separatists to travel beyond Pakistan-administered Kashmir to Islamabad, where they held talks with President Pervez Musharraf.

People who travel on the bus service, which started April 7, can only visit the divided zones of Kashmir under the agreement between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Kashmir is held in part by the two countries but is claimed in full by both.

The bus is one of the key successes of the 18-month-old peace process.

Pakistan’s decision to “invite them to visit Islamabad and other cities in Pakistan violated an understanding on the procedures reached between the two countries for running the bus service,” Manmohan said.

He made the comments in a letter to former Indian Premier and Hindu hard-liner Atal Behari Vajpayee, who criticized the government’s policy on the separatists’ visit.

Pakistani spokesman Jilani said the interaction with Kashmiri moderates from the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference — an umbrella group of more than 24 separatist or pro-independence groups — was positive.

“They exchanged ideas with the Pakistani leadership about a possible solution to the Kashmir dispute. Their visit should be seen in a positive light by everyone,” Jilani said.

During their unprecedented visit here, the Hurriyat leaders met Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and other political leaders. They said they would like to meet the Indian leadership when they returned last week.

On Monday, New Delhi rejected the demand by Hurriyat to be included in the dialogue process but said it could give its suggestions for solving the Kashmir issue.

A bloody revolt against New Delhi’s rule in the Indian zone of Kashmir has claimed tens of thousands of lives since 1989.

Fifteen people were injured in a grenade blast triggered by suspected militants in Indian-administered Kashmir while Indian troops shot dead two rebels near the de facto border with Pakistan, officials said yesterday.

The grenade blast occurred at Bijbehara town, 40 km south of the Indian Kashmir summer capital Srinagar, a police spokesman said.

“Militants hurled a grenade at a security patrol which missed the target and exploded among the pedestrians in the busy town,” he said. Three of the injured were in serious condition.

Meanwhile, Indian troops late Tuesday shot dead two militants after they crossed into Indian Kashmir from the Pakistani portion of the disputed region, army spokesman Vijay Batra said.

He said the two were asked to surrender but they instead opened fire, wounding an Indian security officer.

“The fire was returned killing two infiltrators,” Batra said, adding that the Machil area of northern Kupwara district where the clash occurred was then searched thoroughly in case other militants had also snuck across.

Violence has continued in Kashmir despite an 18-month-old peace process between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, who share control of the disputed Kashmir region.

Last week some 15 people were killed and more than 100 injured in a car-bomb explosion outside a school in Pulwama town.