SRINAGAR, 2 April 2005 — Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed billed the proposed Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service as mother of all Indo-Pak CBM’s yesterday while assuring fool proof security to passengers availing the bus service. Security has been heightened following threats from militant outfits of targeting the bus. Earlier this week the militants labeled the bus a “coffin” and urged Kashmiris to shun the service.
Mufti announced in the state assembly yesterday that passengers would be provided full security adding “there will be no laxity on this account”.
“The militants have failed to deter us in the past and will not succeed now either,” Mufti said. “Our determination to bring down the walls of hatred is unshakable.”
The chief minister said that after 1947, the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service is the major issue with which people of the state have strong attachment.
Pakistan, meanwhile, threw a damper by denying permission to a group of Indian politicians who wanted to travel with the maiden bus, reports said Friday. The Press Trust of India news agency quoted unnamed government sources saying that the Indian request had been rejected. “Communication was received from Pakistan denying the permission to eight politicians from mainstream Indian political parties to travel,” the news agency reported the sources as saying.
Earlier this week, India’s foreign office asked the Pakistani government to grant permission to a group of eight senior politicians to travel in a separate bus along with the inaugural Kashmir bus.
Kashmiri politicians expressed deep disappointment at the “unhappy development”, PTI said. “Our aim was not to politicize the historic event but to represent the people of Jammu and Kashmir across the border,” said Kashmir’s main opposition National Conference chief Omar Abdullah, according to PTI.
Abdullah had hoped to travel on the bus along with party colleague Abdul Rahim Rather, People’s Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti, Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Mangat Ram Sharma and several key Kashmiri politicians.
Other leaders too joined in praising the resumption of service. “The Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus is a small significant step toward finding a permanent solution to the Kashmir problem,” Abdul Gani Bhat, a leader of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, said.
“This path will lead to sanity to begin with. The path to peace will pass through Kashmir, and reach Delhi and Islamabad. And the path to peace will mean obviously a permanent resolution of the Kashmir problem.” He didn’t elaborate.
But rebel groups have urged people to observe a complete strike to protest the start of the bus on April 7. Kashmiris have brushed aside the separatist rebel threat and vowed to board the bus.
A retired Indian bureaucrat planning a trip on the maiden bus to Muzaffarabad said he has received death threats from a guerrilla group. “We have received threatening calls from terror outfit Al-Nasreen,” the Himalayan territory’s former deputy administrator Khalid Hussain said.
“The militant outfit has warned us not to travel to Muzaffarabad and meet relatives,” said Hussain, who is booked along with his wife on the inaugural service to the capital of the Pakistani zone of Kashmir.
Khalid said an unidentified man called him late Thursday and threatened to kill him if he ignored the warning. “(But) nothing will stop us from meeting our relatives after decades of separation.
“A movement of connecting hearts and minds of divided families has started and militants, who talk of freedom want to keep divided families... separated,” he said.
— Additional input from agencies.
