History will be made on Tuesday when a bus service will ply on the Poonch-Rawalkote road in the Jammu region after a gap of 58 years.
SRINAGAR: History will be made on Tuesday when a bus service will ply on the Poonch-Rawalkote road in the Jammu region after a gap of 58 years. After the Srinagar-Muzzafarabad road, this is the second cross-LoC route to be reopened in trouble-torn J&K. On April 7 last year, the historic Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road was reopened in the Kashmir region and the first Karavan-e-Aman (peace) bus was flagged off.
Dinesh K Badola of the Jammu-based 16 Corps said all arrangements had been made for the opening of the cross-LoC route. "We have completed most of the work. Apart from the PWD's work, we have also laid a stretch of the road. Some structures have been constructed by the civil administration for customs and other facilities," he said.
Cutting across party and ideological lines, political leaders have welcomed the reopening of the second cross-LoC road. "We welcome this move. At the same time, the central government should open other routes including Kargil-Skarudu and Mirpur-Biller so that the families living apart in these areas could also meet," said Moulvi Mohammad Abbaas Ansari, former chairman of the moderate Hurriyat Conference.
Divided families, however, reacted cautiously to the new LoC bus. "This is a good move, provided the government does away with the mediators and red-tapism. I had applied for permission to travel in the first bus on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad route, but so far I haven't got the clearance. My file is gathering dust either in PoK or here. There must be hundreds of others waiting eagerly for permission to travel," said Rasheed Masoodi, who was not allowed to travel to participate in his father's last rites ceremony in PoK in April.
Observers too feel that bureaucratic hassles are taking a heavy toll on the people. "There might be thousands of applications pending in the offices. It looks pretty easy to travel on a passport rather than on a permit. Getting permits is much more difficult than a visa. The bus can only serve a purpose when people can travel easily," said Prof Rekha Chaudhary, head of the department of Political Sciences, Jammu University.
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