The Hindu : Front Page : 30 passengers, thousands of well-wishers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 08, 2005

Front Page

Front Page

30 passengers, thousands of well-wishers

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

LINE OF CONTROL (PAKISTAN-OCCUPIED-KASHM, APRIL 7. The 30 passengers, who travelled on the first Muzaffarabad-Srinagar bus, made history this afternoon, as they set foot on the Aman Setu (the peace bridge) between India and Pakistan.

Though they are a microscopic minority of the 3.2 million people of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK), they carried with them the wishes, aspirations and dreams of the overwhelming majority of people for bonding with their brethren on the Indian side.

This was evident in the enthusiastic send-off they received from people of all walks of life — first at the government reception in Muzaffarabad, the PoK capital, and subsequently, at every town and village along the 59 km route to the last inch of territory under Pakistan control.

The green bus of the PoK State Transport Corporation that ferried the passengers back and forth from Muzaffarabad and the LoC was the cynosure of all eyes and everyone wanted to be part of it. The convoy of small vehicles that followed the bus was at least three kilometre long. It was like a big street festival to which the authorities never objected. The Government declared a public holiday and no one was complaining.

Political observers were unanimous that in decades PoK has not witnessed such spontaneity. People poured on to the streets to greet the first travellers to cross the border, legally from Chakoti, in exactly five decades.

Women and children, perched at vantage points, waved merrily as the bus snaked its way through the picturesque mountain range.

Television images of Wednesday and screaming headlines in the media about the attack on the Tourist Reception Centre in Srinagar appears to have had no impact on the spirit of either the passengers or the spectators. The correspondent of the Pakistan English daily, The News camping in Muzaffarabad for two days, said: ``Till last night, no one was talking of the bus. I never realised the intense feelings of the people for the bus link till we travelled along the bus up to LoC. Maybe, it is a statement of the people of PoK on the Tuesday incident in Srinagar.''

For all the fears in their minds about the implications of Tuesday's attack, the passengers showed no signs of worry. ``Come what may, I, along with my wife, am determined to make it by the first bus to Srinagar. We have waited for too long and have run out of our patience. No one can take my life if the Almighty is with me,'' was the reply of M.A.S. Masoodi as hordes of foreign and local correspondents sought his views on the Srinagar attack.

A waiting list

for two years

``All the 30 passengers who had booked by the first bus have reported and are all set to go. We never had any doubt about it. The demand from the citizens to travel by the bus was so high that in a couple of days we distributed 2,500 forms and 1,500 of them have returned them with the required details. Going by the current frequency of the bus at the rate of 30 passengers, the waiting list from our side is nearly two years,'' said Liaquat Hussain, Deputy Commissioner of Muzaffarabad (and the Designated Authority from PoK side for verification of the application forms).

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