Bus crossing boosts Indo-Pak relations
Bus crossing boosts Indo-Pak relations
Agence France-Presse, Wagah, India
Passenger buses on Friday crossed the border between India and Pakistan for the first time in 18 months in the most tangible sign of easing tensions between the South Asian arch-rivals.
The bus from Pakistan crossed into India here carrying a sick child and 27 others hours before the Indian bus with 32 on board halted at the land transit point of Wagah before entering Pakistan.
The buses are the first cross-border transport links between the neighbors since ties snapped after a Dec. 13, 2001 attack on the Indian parliament by gunmen New Delhi claims were backed by Islamabad. Pakistan denies the allegation.
"We welcome the resumption of the service and hope it will lead to improvement of relations between Pakistan and India," Pakistani Tourism Minister Raess Munir Ahmed said before the Pakistan bus left the eastern city of Lahore at dawn.
And in New Delhi, officials hailed the service to the Pakistani city, but did not forget to admonish Islamabad once again for its alleged support to an Islamic insurgency in Indian Kashmir.
"I hope better sense will prevail upon Pakistan and it will stop cross-border infiltration," Surface Transport Minister B.C. Khanduri said, flagging off the Lahore-bound bus in pounding monsoon rains.
Indians aboard the bus to Pakistan shared a moment of joy with passengers from Pakistan as the two buses crossed path in the northern Indian state of Punjab.
"It was an emotional moment when the green-colored bus came from the opposite direction as it too carried people like us who are eager to start new relationships," Virendra Kumar told AFP by cellular telephone from the Indian bus.
Among passengers on the bus from Pakistan was two-year-old Noor Fatima who was being taken by her mother for cardiac treatment in the southern Indian city of Bangalore.
"She has a hole in the heart and people have told me they have the expertise at a Bangalore hospital to cure her," she said.
"The resumption of bus service is a very happy moment for me as it gives me hope for recovery of my child."
Police from the two countries were escorting the vehicles throughout the journeys, which take about 11 hours.
In New Delhi, about 100 members of the radical Hindu group Shiv Sena, waving black flags and holding placards denouncing Pakistan, jeered the departure of the Lahore-bound bus.
"On the one hand we keep extending a hand of friendship and time and again Pakistan stabs us in the back," said Shiv Sena's Delhi chief Jay Bhagwan Goel.
"Pakistan should first stop the killings in Kashmir before the Indian government runs a bus service and takes steps toward normalizing relations," he said, promising a rowdy reception for the bus from Lahore when it arrived.
Delhi Transport Corporation chairman A.J. Sawhney said there had been strong demand for tickets on the resumed twice-weekly service but that many would-be passengers lacked visas for Pakistan.
"We hope the bus service will help to normalize relations between India and Pakistan," Sawhney told reporters.
Laeek Ahmed in the Indian bus said the resumption of the bus service was "wonderful news" as his niece's marriage to a Pakistani resident had to be suspended for two years because there was no cheap means of travel.
"There are 14 of us from the girl's family who will be boarding buses as and when we get the tickets. I am very happy to be traveling on the first bus," he said.
Abdul Qayoom Wani, a resident of Indian Kashmir, said he will be visiting his sister Nasra, who lives in the northern Pakistani city Rawalpindi, for the first time in three years.
"We hope direct air links will also start."
India halted air, train and bus links with Pakistan after the attack on parliament, which also led to both sides deploying nearly a million troops on their shared border in a year-long stand off.
The resumption of the bus service follows the thaw in bilateral ties after an April 18 offer of a "hand of friendship" to Pakistan by Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.