NEW DELHI, July 7: A handful of passengers hoping to buy tickets for the first bus to Pakistan in four years returned home empty-handed on Monday amid chaos and red tape at the resumption of the service, witnesses and officials said.

People, including a Kashmiri couple, waited for hours at a Delhi Transport Corp terminus for tickets to travel to Lahore but were turned away.

“All we can say is the clearance to sell tickets has only now been given by the foreign ministry to the surface transport ministry and so we are afraid the ticket sales can now only start on Tuesday,” DTC spokesman Sunil Mudgal said on Monday.

“The resumed service can improve ties (between the two countries) but if things are as messy as today then only Allah knows,” said Mohammad Yasin, 90, who first travelled on the bus four years ago when India flagged down the service.

“My visa is ready, my papers are in order and all I need is this ticket to reach Pakistan where my wife Nuzrat and our two children are waiting for me to bring them back,” said Khaliqur Rahman, a resident of New Delhi.

“And now they will fear the worst,” said Mr Rahman, whose wife is a Pakistani citizen.

Inside the freshly-painted DTC counter bus-in-charge Sukhdev Anand, too, waited anxiously for the bureaucracy to allow him to hand out tickets to those waiting in the sweltering heat outside.

“Since morning we have received 40-50 inquiries and some came for tickets but with invalid visas, and as we wait we are checking papers of those coming to us,” said Mr Anand.

“It seems Pakistan embassy, too, is not issuing correct visas,” he said of his orders which stipulate the sale of tickets only to those passengers who are specifically cleared to travel by the 34-seat bus. The 536km journey from New Delhi to Lahore takes nearly 14 hours.—AFP