Second bus route opens across divided Kashmir

Pakistan and India agreed to start the Rawlakot to Poonch service to help reunite families living on either side of Kashmir's Line of Control (LoC), a de facto border that has split the mountainous region for decades.

Amid heavy security, India's ruling Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi launched the service when the bus arrived at Chakandabagh on the border after it had travelled the 10 kilometers (six miles) from Poonch in Indian Kashmir.

Passengers were to cross the frontier on foot before a separate bus took them to Rawlakot in the Pakistani zone.

"This bus service is bound to strengthen the relationship between India and Pakistan," Gandhi said.

The Indian bus is carrying 66 passengers, 36 of whom are from Pakistani Kashmir who would be returning home after a visit to the Indian zone, according to district police chief S.D.S Jamwal.

On the Pakistani side 55 passengers gathered at Titrinote border post before boarding the bus. The bus then took the passengers just over a kilometre up to the LoC.

Passengers from both sides will cross the border on foot before being driven to their destinations. The buses themselves will not cross.

"This is a good omen for the divided Kashmiri families," Sardar Sikandar Hayat, the prime minister of Pakistani Kashmir, said ahead of the launch of the service.

The fortnightly service is the latest step in attempts to normalise ties between the nuclear-armed rivals, who have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947 -- two of them over Kashmir.