ISLAMABAD, 15 November 2005 — Pakistan and India opened a fourth crossing point at Tatta Pani-Mendher on the Line of Control dividing Kashmir yesterday.
Indian and Pakistani officials smiled and shook hands at the crossing opening.
“The Tatta Pani-Mendher crossing on the Line of Control in Kashmir opened at 10:30 a.m. (0530 GMT),” a senior Pakistani military official said in the area. Tatta Pani is on the Pakistani side and Mendher in the Indian zone.
Afterwards porters carried across heavy sacks containing blankets, rations and other relief, for quake-hit families on both sides. No Kashmiri civilians were permitted to cross the heavily militarized border.
“They exchanged two trucks each of relief goods,” the Pakistani official said.
Pakistan and India have reached an agreement to open five crossing points to aid humanitarian efforts following the Oct. 8 quake that killed over 73,000 people in Pakistan and its part of Kashmir and 1,300 people in Indian Kashmir. The fifth crossing is scheduled to become operational tomorrow.
DPA adds: Foreign Office spokesperson Tasneem Aslam told reporters that Pakistan had approved three lists of 83 residents from the Indian part of Kashmir for travel through the crossing points.
“We cleared the lists within three days and are handing over today to the Indian side to facilitate divided families to share their grief and assist each other in relief and reconstruction efforts (in the aftermath of the Oct. 8 earthquake),” Aslam said.
Indian authorities have received from their Pakistani counterparts a list of 70 people who wish to travel to the Indian side of the LoC.
