ISLAMABAD/SRINAGAR, 21 April 2005 — The second bus linking Indian Kashmir with the Pakistani zone of the Himalayan region was set to roll today amid fresh militant violence and opposition from a key hard-line separatist.
However, only 11 people are to board the bus in Muzaffarabad, two weeks after its historic launch as most passengers changed their mind citing personal reasons, officials said.
The bus will carry 11 passengers from this side as against its sanctioned strength of 30, said Liaqat Hussain, deputy commissioner of Muzaffarabad.
“Many people who were cleared for the second ride have declined to travel for some domestic reasons,” he said.
The bus will leave the Muzaffarabad terminal around 9 a.m. and reach the town of Chakhoti on the dividing line of control (LoC) two hours later, he said.
Hussain denied the prospective travelers dropped out due to security fears on the Indian side amid opposition from separatists.
He said many passengers expressed desire to travel by the third bus which is due to leave on May 5, because they said, “it is wheat harvesting season.” Others cited marriages in their families, he added.
Some of others were double-minded after Pakistani and Indian leaders agreed to start a second bus service between Poonch in Indian Kashmir to Rawalakot in Pakistan, he said.
“The Poonch-Rawalakot route suits all those travelers who have relatives in the Jammu and Rajouri areas on the other side of the LoC,” he said.
Pakistani and Indian authorities swapped lists of passengers for the second bus, a day after the April 7 launch of the service.
India cleared 47 of the 50 names in the Pakistani list, most of them were from the southern districts of Pakistani Kashmir.
Indian security forces carried out massive security sweeps yesterday to ensure the safety of the bus service which has paved the way for tearful reunions of relatives who have not seen each other for decades.
“The second bus will roll on schedule tomorrow (Thursday) under tight security,” a police officer said in Srinagar. “We’ve made all the arrangements for a safe journey.”
It is seen as the biggest achievement from a 14-month peace process between the nuclear-armed neighbors who have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir.
But it has been bitterly opposed by some rebel groups and separatists as a move to a “soft border” that they worry will take the steam out of their cause by allowing greater people-to-people contact.
Opponents fear the bus may lead India, Pakistan and Kashmiris to accept the LoC as a permanent frontier.
Rebels and separatists want Muslim-majority Kashmir to be reunited as part of Pakistan or become independent.
While the region’s main rebel group Hizb-ul-Mujahedeen has said militants fighting New Delhi’s rule should not oppose the service, four other groups have vowed to attack it.
In fresh violence yesterday, suspected rebels killed two civilians and injured 17 others in a grenade attack on a security patrol that missed its target and exploded among pedestrians in northern Sopore town of Indian Kashmir, police said. Suspected rebels also killed a policeman and an alleged informer.
Also yesterday, Kashmir’s leading separatist, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, renewed his opposition to the bus, saying, “Opening the road won’t help resolve the Kashmir dispute.”
‘Forgotten Prisoners’
Meanwhile, the families of dozens of people from Pakistani Kashmir allegedly held in the Indian zone of the disputed Himalayan state called yesterday on New Delhi to release them.
“We call upon the Indian authorities in the name of humanity to release my son and all others who have languished in different prisons for several years,” Sabir Ali and his wife Salima Bibi said at a press conference in Muzaffarabad.
Ali’s son Jafar was 17 when he crossed the LoC “to see his uncle on the other side.”
He was arrested by the Indian troops but his family only came to know he had been detained after two years.
