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SRINAGAR, Apr 7 (Reuters): India and Pakistan plan to go ahead with their first trans-Kashmir bus service Thursday, a day after a suicide attack by Islamic rebels determined to derail the popular peace-building move.
Amid heavy rain and gray skies, security in Indian Kashmir was the tightest for years, including the 2002 state election. Troops swarmed the bus route along National Highway 1A, deploying armoured
cars and minesweeping teams.
In Srinagar, the state's main city and the ethnic and cultural heart of Kashmir, soldiers and armoured cars guarded every intersection and checkpoints have been set up every few hundred metres.
Adding to the sense of unease, militant groups fighting Indian rule of the disputed Himalayan territory have vowed to turn the first bus between the two sides in half a century into a coffin for its passengers.
Just hours before the few dozen Kashmiris were set to head off on the first trip over rugged and heavily forested Himalayan ranges, two gunmen stormed a compound sheltering passengers in Srinagar and set the main building ablaze. The militants were killed and six people were injured. All of the bus travellers were unharmed.
The 170-km (105-mile) bus link to Muzaffarabad in Pakistani Kashmir represents a small concession for families separated by conflict since 1947 but also carries hopes of a big boost to a cautious peace process, a week before Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf travels to New Delhi for talks.
India the bus would be flagged off from Srinagar as scheduled by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
"We are absolutely prepared. We are safe, Inshallah (God willing) it will be a smooth journey," a top Indian security official said.
The now nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours have fought two wars over mainly Muslim Kashmir and were on the verge of a third in 2002 before pulling back from the brink.
Indian television quoted Singh saying the Srinagar raid could not be allowed to jeopardise peace efforts. Pakistan condemned the attack and offered sympathies to the passengers.
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