|
Home>News Center>World | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Buses set to cross Kashmir divide despite attack
India and Pakistan open a historic bus link across divided Kashmir on Thursday, protected by heavy security following a suicide attack by separatist rebels on the Indian end of the route.
India vowed that the first bus to cross the divide in half a century would be flagged off from Srinagar as scheduled, by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
"We are absolutely prepared. We are safe, Inshallah (God willing) it will be a smooth journey," a top Indian security official said.
The now nuclear-armed South Asian neighbors have fought two wars over mainly Muslim Kashmir and were on the verge of a third in 2002 before pulling back from the brink.
Four groups fighting Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan territory have threatened to turn the first bus between the two sides in half a century into a coffin for its passengers.
EMBARRASSMENT FOR NEW DELHI
The Islamic rebels say the bus would only serve Indian aims to hold on to Kashmir and its passengers were insulting the 15-year insurgency by making the journey.
The groups claimed responsibility for the suicide attack, which left the yellow tourist complex building located in the heart of Srinagar's high-security zone in debris and ashes.
The entire 120-km (75-mile) mountain road from Srinagar to the frontier on the Indian side was lined with soldiers even before the suicide attack but rebels managed to set off a bomb by the road on Tuesday, wounding seven highway workers.
Hours earlier, security forces had found two big land mines miles away on the same road and had defused it.
In Srinagar, a scenic lakeside city ringed by mountains, soldiers closed roads, put up barricades, stepped up patrols and checked vehicles in the runup to the bus launch ceremony.
While passengers on the Indian side were moved to a secret base after the attack, passengers on the Pakistani side -- who will travel from the other side on another bus at the same time -- said they were not scared by violence.
"I am not scared. I will definitely go if the bus goes," said Nisar Ahmed Zakir. "In war-like situations such incidents happen. But I will go."
Abida Masoodi, a woman in her 50s, echoed his comments: "It's my firm decision to go provided the bus goes. "If such a death is the fate, then it's OK."- |
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![Pakistani Kashmiri passengers arrive to board a bus bound for Srinagar, the capital of Indian Kashmir, at a bus terminal in Muzaffarabad April 7, 2005. A bus set off from the capital Pakistan-controlled Kashmir on Thursday carrying passengers bound for the Indian side of the region for the first time in more then 50 years. [Reuters]](xin_0404020714187021020615.jpg)
