CHAKOTHI, June 30: The VVIP helicopter carrying Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and AJK President Sardar Anwar Khan and Premier Sardar Sikandar Hayat strayed into the Indian-occupied side of Kashmir on Thursday afternoon, but turned back immediately after the pilot realised his mistake.

Officials told Dawn that the cabinet division’s helicopter was marking time to land in a field adjacent to the Chakothi bus terminal when the pilot accidentally flew over the water channel that marks the Line of Control in Chakothi sector. The bus terminal is some 1.3 kilometres away from the LoC.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed who was among the five federal ministers accompanying the premier later commented in a light vein that after all he had made it to the other side of the LoC. “I have today briefly crossed the LoC but soon I will go to the other side by the (trans-Kashmir) bus service,” the minister, who was denied permission by India to travel by Thursday’s bus to occupied Kashmir, said in response to a question. Sheikh Rashid said had the Indians allowed him, the peace process would have received a boost.

The officials said that after landing in Chakothi, the prime minister inspected the bus terminal and later boarded the 36-seater bus meant for trans-Kashmir passengers. The bus took him to a place close to the Opi Bridge where two brigadiers gave him a briefing.

The prime minister’s visit to Muzaffarabad and the LoC coincided with the departure of 57 passengers from the AJK to occupied Kashmir by the seventh trans-Kashmir bus.