Post by Bozur on Apr 9, 2005 20:46:34 GMT -5
NYTimes.com > International > Asia Pacific
Bus and Bridge Reunite Kashmiris Long Kept Apart
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: April 8, 2005
Scott Eells for The New York Times
Bus service resumed on Thursday across disputed Kashmir. The buses allow long-divided families to meet again.
European Pressphoto Agency
Kashmiris from Pakistan-held territory walked to Indian-controlled land at a crossing where bus service resumed Thursday across disputed Kashmir. The buses allow long-divided families to meet again.
Saurabh Das/Associated Press
A man from the Indian part of Kashmir, left, with a relative visiting Thursday from the Pakistan side. New bus service reunited many people.
LINE OF CONTROL, Kashmir, April 7 - On Thursday afternoon, Kashmiris took their first steps where a bridge was destroyed more than 50 years ago in a battle between their countries. As they did, they were garlanded with marigolds and offered plates of sweets. One man coming from the Pakistani side to the Indian side fell to his knees and kissed the ground.
This crossing had been closed since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, and the India-Pakistan war that accompanied it. Until Thursday, it had been extremely difficult, if not impossible, for Kashmiri families living on either side to get visas and to make the trip. Relatives have missed weddings and funerals and been unable to visit even though they are separated by a drive of only a couple hours.
The 220-foot-long bridge, now called the Peace Bridge, was rebuilt two weeks ago. On Thursday morning, the paint was still wet.
The first crossing came at 1:30 p.m. Indian time, when 30 Pakistanis walked across from west to east to board buses for a reception in Salamabad in Indian-held Kashmir and on to Srinagar. About three hours later, 19 Indians made the reverse crossing, east to west. They boarded buses bound for Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir.
Hundreds of spectators stood dotting the hills on the Pakistani side of Kashmir. In the evening, as buses loaded with visitors wound through Indian Kashmir, people on the sidelines waved and whistles even as darkness and rain began to fall. "Azadi," or freedom, some chanted; "Long live Pakistan," shouted others.
The bus rides, laden with fear and nostalgia for the passengers and potentially a great deal of political mileage for the government officials behind the arrangement, came a day after a brazen attack in Srinagar by militants. On Wednesday, they stormed a government tourism compound where Indian officials said scheduled passengers were being housed as a protective measure after repeated threats. The militants exchanged gunfire with Indian security forces and set the compound ablaze.
Between the threats and Wednesday's attack, 10 people from the Indian side pulled out of the bus trip.
Violence on Thursday was limited to an unsuccessful grenade attack roughly midway between Srinagar and the Line of Control. Indian military officials and passengers said the buses were untouched.
"This is my country," Begum Zamrooda Sharif, a woman in her mid-60's with a heart condition, said shortly after making the crossing in a wheelchair from the Pakistani side to the Indian side.
Born in Jammu, Mrs. Sharif left for Pakistan in 1948, thinking she would return in two or three months. "Now I'm coming back after 57 years," she said. "I feel like laughing and crying at the same time." She said she was here to visit her brother-in-law.
Headed in the opposite direction, Ghulam Fatima was on her way to see a daughter in Muzaffarabad after 16 years. "I'm going to meet a piece of my heart," she said just before the crossing. Her daughter married into a family living in Muzaffarabad in 1989. Mrs. Fatima and her husband, Mohammed Abdullah Butt, would be seeing their four grandchildren for the first time.
"From Home to Home," read a billboard on the Pakistan side of the bridge, and then, farther down the road, a line from the Koran: "There is no God but one God." On the Indian side was a billboard containing a verse from Muhammad Iqbal, one of the subcontinent's most celebrated poets. "No religion teaches you to hate one another," it read.
The divided families of Kashmir are meant to be the principal beneficiaries of the bus link. They also stand as a metaphor for the bitter relations between their countries.
India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir. For 15 years the Indian side of the province has been engulfed in an insurgency. India calls it a proxy fight by Pakistan, but Pakistan says its support for the rebels is moral and political, not military. Peace talks over the last year have yielded few tangible results other than the bus link.
Whether the link can be sustained - the buses are to run every two weeks - remains to be seen, considering the security threats. Whether it will lead to deals on deeper, thornier issues, like the status of Kashmir itself, is the bigger question.
"A door has opened," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India said as he inaugurated the bus service in a cricket stadium in Srinagar. Pakistan and President Pervez Musharraf in particular "have helped us open this door. This is the beginning of a new phase."
In Pakistan, which has taken a low-key approach to the bus link, Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan, the chief minister of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, sent off the buses from his side by saying, "No artificial wall can keep us divided."
On the Line of Control three years ago, troops from each side stood eye to eye in anticipation of another war.
On Thursday, Irshad Ahmed Bucch, 66, was gushing after crossing that frontier. "I cannot believe that I am here," he said. He had left Srinagar at age 14 and managed to visit his brothers back home only once since then. "This is a two-and-a-half-hour distance and I couldn't get a visa for 35 years," he said. This time, his nephew's wedding had been scheduled to coincide with his visit.
Al-Haj Mohammed Qureshi, 55, stuck his head out of a bus window and declared, "This is a mission accomplished, a dream fulfilled." He was on his way to visit his sister in Indian-administered Kashmir.
Shamim Qureshi, who left behind a wife and children in Srinagar 20 years ago, said he was unsure what he would find. "Twenty years is a lot of time," he said as he waited to board the bus at Muzaffarabad. "Time will tell how they behave with me now that I will face them."
Private emotions aside, Ms. Sharif took pains to point out that the hard work of peace-building was still left undone. "The bus is a small step, but it is not enough," she said. "Both the governments should talk and keep the guns aside. We need to make a fresh start."
Hari Kumar contributed reporting from Salamabad for this article, and Salman Masood from Muzaffarabad.
Bus and Bridge Reunite Kashmiris Long Kept Apart
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: April 8, 2005
Scott Eells for The New York Times
Bus service resumed on Thursday across disputed Kashmir. The buses allow long-divided families to meet again.
European Pressphoto Agency
Kashmiris from Pakistan-held territory walked to Indian-controlled land at a crossing where bus service resumed Thursday across disputed Kashmir. The buses allow long-divided families to meet again.
Saurabh Das/Associated Press
A man from the Indian part of Kashmir, left, with a relative visiting Thursday from the Pakistan side. New bus service reunited many people.
LINE OF CONTROL, Kashmir, April 7 - On Thursday afternoon, Kashmiris took their first steps where a bridge was destroyed more than 50 years ago in a battle between their countries. As they did, they were garlanded with marigolds and offered plates of sweets. One man coming from the Pakistani side to the Indian side fell to his knees and kissed the ground.
This crossing had been closed since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, and the India-Pakistan war that accompanied it. Until Thursday, it had been extremely difficult, if not impossible, for Kashmiri families living on either side to get visas and to make the trip. Relatives have missed weddings and funerals and been unable to visit even though they are separated by a drive of only a couple hours.
The 220-foot-long bridge, now called the Peace Bridge, was rebuilt two weeks ago. On Thursday morning, the paint was still wet.
The first crossing came at 1:30 p.m. Indian time, when 30 Pakistanis walked across from west to east to board buses for a reception in Salamabad in Indian-held Kashmir and on to Srinagar. About three hours later, 19 Indians made the reverse crossing, east to west. They boarded buses bound for Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir.
Hundreds of spectators stood dotting the hills on the Pakistani side of Kashmir. In the evening, as buses loaded with visitors wound through Indian Kashmir, people on the sidelines waved and whistles even as darkness and rain began to fall. "Azadi," or freedom, some chanted; "Long live Pakistan," shouted others.
The bus rides, laden with fear and nostalgia for the passengers and potentially a great deal of political mileage for the government officials behind the arrangement, came a day after a brazen attack in Srinagar by militants. On Wednesday, they stormed a government tourism compound where Indian officials said scheduled passengers were being housed as a protective measure after repeated threats. The militants exchanged gunfire with Indian security forces and set the compound ablaze.
Between the threats and Wednesday's attack, 10 people from the Indian side pulled out of the bus trip.
Violence on Thursday was limited to an unsuccessful grenade attack roughly midway between Srinagar and the Line of Control. Indian military officials and passengers said the buses were untouched.
"This is my country," Begum Zamrooda Sharif, a woman in her mid-60's with a heart condition, said shortly after making the crossing in a wheelchair from the Pakistani side to the Indian side.
Born in Jammu, Mrs. Sharif left for Pakistan in 1948, thinking she would return in two or three months. "Now I'm coming back after 57 years," she said. "I feel like laughing and crying at the same time." She said she was here to visit her brother-in-law.
Headed in the opposite direction, Ghulam Fatima was on her way to see a daughter in Muzaffarabad after 16 years. "I'm going to meet a piece of my heart," she said just before the crossing. Her daughter married into a family living in Muzaffarabad in 1989. Mrs. Fatima and her husband, Mohammed Abdullah Butt, would be seeing their four grandchildren for the first time.
"From Home to Home," read a billboard on the Pakistan side of the bridge, and then, farther down the road, a line from the Koran: "There is no God but one God." On the Indian side was a billboard containing a verse from Muhammad Iqbal, one of the subcontinent's most celebrated poets. "No religion teaches you to hate one another," it read.
The divided families of Kashmir are meant to be the principal beneficiaries of the bus link. They also stand as a metaphor for the bitter relations between their countries.
India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir. For 15 years the Indian side of the province has been engulfed in an insurgency. India calls it a proxy fight by Pakistan, but Pakistan says its support for the rebels is moral and political, not military. Peace talks over the last year have yielded few tangible results other than the bus link.
Whether the link can be sustained - the buses are to run every two weeks - remains to be seen, considering the security threats. Whether it will lead to deals on deeper, thornier issues, like the status of Kashmir itself, is the bigger question.
"A door has opened," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India said as he inaugurated the bus service in a cricket stadium in Srinagar. Pakistan and President Pervez Musharraf in particular "have helped us open this door. This is the beginning of a new phase."
In Pakistan, which has taken a low-key approach to the bus link, Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan, the chief minister of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, sent off the buses from his side by saying, "No artificial wall can keep us divided."
On the Line of Control three years ago, troops from each side stood eye to eye in anticipation of another war.
On Thursday, Irshad Ahmed Bucch, 66, was gushing after crossing that frontier. "I cannot believe that I am here," he said. He had left Srinagar at age 14 and managed to visit his brothers back home only once since then. "This is a two-and-a-half-hour distance and I couldn't get a visa for 35 years," he said. This time, his nephew's wedding had been scheduled to coincide with his visit.
Al-Haj Mohammed Qureshi, 55, stuck his head out of a bus window and declared, "This is a mission accomplished, a dream fulfilled." He was on his way to visit his sister in Indian-administered Kashmir.
Shamim Qureshi, who left behind a wife and children in Srinagar 20 years ago, said he was unsure what he would find. "Twenty years is a lot of time," he said as he waited to board the bus at Muzaffarabad. "Time will tell how they behave with me now that I will face them."
Private emotions aside, Ms. Sharif took pains to point out that the hard work of peace-building was still left undone. "The bus is a small step, but it is not enough," she said. "Both the governments should talk and keep the guns aside. We need to make a fresh start."
Hari Kumar contributed reporting from Salamabad for this article, and Salman Masood from Muzaffarabad.