The Hindu : National : `Additional document' with passport is fine by India

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 29, 2004

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National

`Additional document' with passport is fine by India

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI, OCT. 28. India is not averse to the idea of an "additional" document, along with the passport, being used for passengers of the proposed Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service.

The problem of what type of travel document is to be used has, so far, prevented the cross-Line of Control (LoC) bus service from being launched. Technical-level talks on "all issues" relating to the bus service have been scheduled for December 7-8 in New Delhi.

According to South Block officials, India is willing to consider the idea of not stamping the passport and, if Pakistan insists, the bus passengers could use a separate document. However, the document has to be used "along with" the passport.

It has been just over a year since India proposed the idea of a Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service as part of a series of confidence-building measures. The then External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, made the rather dramatic proposal on October 22, 2003 to break the logjam in relations.

Though dates to discuss the details of the bus service had been set earlier, the meeting did not take place as planned. The lack of agreement on the travel document is the main hurdle to launching the service. There are other problems too. Pakistan has made it known that it would like only "Kashmiris" living on either side of the LoC to use the bus service.

India, on the other hand, does not favour restricting the bus service to "Kashmiris." It wants all Indians (and Pakistanis, too) to be able to use the service. Officials told this correspondent that India would not like to accord any "special status" to the service by permitting only a section of Indian nationals to use it.

Pakistan says Kashmir is a "disputed" territory and the use of passports will dilute this claim because the LoC crossing would, then, be no different from travelling through the International Border at Wagah.

Pakistan's fear is that the use of passport will lend further sanctity to the Line of Control — an objective that Islamabad has tried hard to resist in the past. However, the use of the passport has implications for India as well and its claim to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

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