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India and Pakistan restores road links
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.
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.
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