First Kashmir bus sets off from India to Pakistan

Reuters | April 7, 2005

[HAL9000]

First Kashmir bus sets off from Indian city

SRINAGAR, India, April 7 (Reuters) - A bus garlanded with orange marigolds set off from the capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir on Thursday carrying passengers bound for the Pakistani side of the territory for first time in nearly 60 years.

The bus, launching a historic service linking the Himalayan region divided since 1947, was sent off by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from Kashmir's main city Srinagar, bound for Muzaffarabad in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.

"The caravan of peace has started," Singh told thousands of Kashmiris who had gathered in a heavily guarded stadium in Srinagar in freezing rain. "Nothing can stop it."

[SteveMcKing]

The driver should secretely head straight to a psychiatric ward, and unload everyone. 'Cause anyone who rides that thing is definitely suicidal.

[SteveMcKing]

"The caravan of peace has started... Nothing can stop it."

Is this a bad movie??

It's as if this man is trying for maximum irony when they all get vaporized just 1/2 mile out.

[Larry Lucido]

"The caravan of peace has started,"

Is Cat Stevens aboard?

[HAL9000]

INDIAN TV REPORTS FIRING ON KASHMIR PEACE BUS, ALL PASSENGERS SAFE

SALAMABAD, India (Reuters) - Militants tried to attack a bus carrying passengers from Indian Kashmir to Pakistani Kashmir on Thursday, but were stopped by security forces and no passengers were hurt, Indian officials said.

"One grenade was thrown followed by a few shots at quite a distance from the bus," said a senior police official in the village of Salamabad in Indian-controlled Kashmir, where the buses were due to break their journey.

"None of them hit the bus, and everybody is safe."

Army officers said the attack, near Singhpura in Indian Kashmir, had been foiled a long way from the bus route, and said an army quick reaction team escorting the buses had not even reported the incident.

Two buses left Srinagar, the main city of Indian-controlled Kashmir, on Thursday morning bound for Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, for the first time in nearly six decades.

Another left Muzaffarabad shortly afterwards bound in the other direction, in a major boost to the peace process between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan.

Islamic militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir have vowed to kill the passengers and turn the bus into a coffin. On Wednesday two rebels attacked and set ablaze a complex where the passengers were staying, without harming the passengers.

[Gengis Khan]

Militants attacked and set on fire the heavily guarded complex, housing Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus passengers, in Srinagar on Wednesday. (Reuters)

Soldiers take civilians out of the burning government building after an attack in Srinaga on Wednesday. (Reuters)

Soldiers take up position near a burning government building after an terror attack in Srinagar on Wednesday . (Rueters)

A security force officer runs for cover from a burning government building after an attack in Srinagar, on Wednesday. (Reuters)

A soldier walks in front of a burning government building after an attack in Srinagar on Wednesday. (Reuters)

[CarrotAndStick]

The buses from either side crossed the Line of Control, apparantly in one piece.

Divided families, split to the levels of parents and children, husbands and wives, were too powerful in their resolve to meet one another. That is real love. To call it suicidal is a sad insult of the human spirit.

Family bonds are pretty strong in India, and is one of the reasons why the rates of divorce are among the lowest in the world, even among the urban classes.

Next thing that will happen is a strong demand from the divides families from the rest of both India and Pakistan, to increase more people-to-people contacts.