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| 27 November 2004 | Saturday | 14 Shawwal 1425 |
3 Kashmir bus routes under study: Mirwaiz
NEW DELHI, Nov 26: India and Pakistan are considering three different routes across the divided Jammu and Kashmir for bus service to unite people of the region, Mirwaiz Maulvi Umar Farooq, Kashmir's spiritual leader, said on Friday.
He told Dawn from Srinagar that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had mentioned the three bus services, linking Srinagar with Muzaffarabad, Jammu with Sialkot and Poonch with Kotli across the disputed territory, as the three transport services that could be started soon.
The Mirwaiz said it was his wish to travel on the first available bus to Muzaffarabad to meet his family members, as also his political associates. A part of this plan was discussed with the people in Srinagar who attended his Friday sermon.
"I briefed my people about our meeting with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, our efforts to unite the Kashmiri freedom fighters and the commitment, which Pakistan heeds, to only go by the wishes of the people of Kashmir as the last word on the Kashmir dispute," Mirwaiz said.
It is learnt that senior Pakistani officials are due in New Delhi on Dec 5 to discuss the bus service, and possibly to signal its resumption. Differences over the kind of travel documents that would be required seem to have been thrashed out.
Among the options being considered is the 'Rahdari' system which was valid until 1953, that required an identification paper. India and Nepal have a similar agreement, to allow travel without passports.
There is one problem though for Mirwaiz. He said he wanted to lead a delegation to an International Pugwash conference in Kathmandu scheduled on Dec 11, which has the Kashmir issue as its main topic.
The view being taken in New Delhi is that if members of the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) are allowed to travel to Kathmandu, where they would no doubt meet their resistance counterparts at the Pugwash conference, then the insistence to be allowed to board the bus to Muzaffarabad could be undermined.
The APHC leaders have maintained that they want to travel to Azad Kashmir and beyond, to Islamabad, to hold political discussions on their homeland's future as part of their proposed tripartite talks.
Since all the leaders had met Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in New Delhi, and then if they manage to meet their counterparts in Kathmandu, their argument to be allowed to travel across the LoC to meet the same people again would lose its force, officials told Dawn.
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