New Delhi/Lahore, July 11: Consolidating the peace process, India and Pakistan today restored road links between them with two luxury buses carrying the first batch of passengers in 18 months travelling in each other's territory in pouring rain amid high emotions and hopes of improving ties. The golden-coloured Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) bus carrying 32 passengers, including 19 mediapersons, reached Lahore covering a distance of 527 km triggering euphoria among those waiting to see their kin across the border.
Similar scenes were witnessed in Delhi when a reciprocal green-coloured Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) bus from Lahore with 28 people, including a sick child and six media persons on board, rolled into the Ambedkar Terminal. As the buses reached their destination passengers hugged and kissed their near and dears soon after they alighted.
Earlier in the day, the buses escorted under an intense security cover crossed each other in Punjab with the passengers cheering and waving at each other.

The day also had its quota of protests from a handful of opponents to the peace process with Pakistan. Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal volunteers shouted slogans against Pakistan and denounced its support to cross border terrorism just after the bus rolled out in Delhi and on its way in Punjab. A similar scene was enacted when the Pakistan bus reached Delhi.
Among the passengers from Pakistan was two-year-old Noor Fatima, who has been brought by her mother for correcting a hole in the heart.

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The service, launched with much fanfare in 1999, almost a month after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's historic bus trip to Lahore, was snapped following an attack by Pakistan-backed terrorists on Parliament on December 13,2001.

The two buses were flagged amid much fanfare almost simultaneously in Delhi and Lahore this morning with passengers hoping the ties between the two countries would improve to enable easier movement of people across the border. "We have waited a long while for the bus link to be restored and today we are very happy that we can meet our relatives in Pakistan," said an excited Abdul Qayoom Wani of Bandipora in Jammu and Kashmir.
Wani, travelling to Rawalpindi along with his wife Sabah Bano to meet his sister, said he prayed for the betterment of relations between the two neighbours to allow people across the border to meet their relatives and friends.

Zahoor Sabah of Jaipur was equally elated as she boarded the bus to meet her husband in Lahore after eight months. She took their three-month-old baby to meet its father.
"We are very happy that the relations between the two countries are improving. Visa regulations should be eased to facilitate people on both sides to visit their kin more often," said Laiq Ahmed of Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh before undertaking the journey along with his wife Sajida Begum and two children to meet his uncle in Gujranwala and attend marriage of a cousin there.
Bureau Report