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PEACE BRIDGE, India/Pakistan border, Apr 6 (Reuters): Indian and Pakistani authorities are racing to finish preparations for the bus re-linking divided Kashmir today (Thursday), deploying everything from sniffer dogs to ancient poetry.
Workers were repainting the bridge Wednesday over the frontier a neutral white, erecting slick signs of welcome and propaganda and painting whole village main streets along the Indian side green-a holy colour in Islam.
But behind the Bollywood movie set-style makeover is a serious threat from Islamic militants to one of the most emotional and concrete steps forward in the peace process between the nuclear powers who came close to war in 2002.
"We are taking exceptional precautions," a senior army commander told the news agency in Srinagar, the main city in Indian Kashmir and the spiritual and cultural heart of the region.
"I am 90 per cent sure it will pass through smoothly. They might try to disturb it ... but they can't sabotage it as it will earn them a lot of ill- will from the local population."
Anti-Indian militants, who have threatened to turn the bus into a coffin, exploded a bomb along the route Tuesday, injuring several civilians. Soldiers found and defused two more.
The passengers due to leave Srinagar on two buses Thursday morning have gone into hiding in a heavily fortified government compound in Srinagar, after militants published their names and addresses. A dry run of the service Monday was cancelled because of security fears.
AFP from Srinagar adds: Suspected Muslim rebels overnight shot dead an official from Indian Kashmir's ruling party, a day ahead of the historic launch of a bus service across divided Kashmir, police said Wednesday.
Ghulam Rasool, an active member of Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed's Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was shot dead inside his house in the village of Seer Hamdan in southern Anantnag district, a police spokesman said.
The spokesman blamed Islamic militants waging a 15-year-long insurgency against Indian rule in the region for the killing, the third of a PDP official in less than a week.
Rebels often target pro-India politicians and people they suspect of working for Indian troops.
The killing comes a day ahead of the historic launch of a bus service between the Indian and Pakistani zones of Kashmir.
The bus from the summer capital Srinagar will be flagged off by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh under watertight security.
The past 10 days has seen a surge in violence in Indian Kashmir, with police figures showing at least 52 people killed -- 29 militants, 17 civilians and six security force personnel.
Militants with assault rifles also attacked a police camp in Patan town, which falls on the bus route, overnight but caused no casualties, police said.
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