India to resume bus service to Pakistan

India is to restart a bus service to Pakistan that was stopped 17 months ago after an attack on its parliament that New Delhi blamed on terrorists supported by Islamabad.

The government also decided to release 70 Pakistani fishermen and 60 other civilian prisoners languishing in Indian jails, said Navtej Sarna, an External Affairs Ministry spokesman.

Today’s steps are part of peace initiatives launched by both countries in a bid to resume dialogue on Kashmir and other disputes after a two-year gap.

Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed welcomed the resumption of the bus service and the prisoner releases, but he also called for a dialogue on key issues.

“These peace overtures should be followed by the holding of a composite dialogue between Pakistan and India to discuss all issues, including the core issue of Kashmir,” he said.

On May 18, Pakistan freed 20 Indian prisoners who had spent nearly two years in Pakistani prisons.

They included 14 Indian fishermen and six others arrested for immigration offences.

Sarna said the twice-a-week bus service linking New Delhi with Lahore, capital of Pakistan’s Punjab state, will be “resumed as soon as details by the technical authorities of the two countries are worked out”.

The bus service was hugely popular in both India and Pakistan as thousands of divided families live on either side of the border.

India stopped air, rail and road links with Pakistan after the attack on its parliament in 2001. Pakistan denied the Indian claims its spy agency was involved in the attack.

Last month, Indian premier Atal Bihari Vajpayee unexpectedly offered to resume dialogue with Pakistan. The nuclear rivals had come close to a war in disputed Kashmir last year.

India and Pakistan control separate portions of Kashmir, but both claim the whole region. The nuclear rivals have fought two wars over control of the Himalayan territory since independence from Britain in 1947.

India accuses Pakistan of backing Islamic militants fighting against New Delhi’s rule in the region, although Islamabad denies it gives the militants material support.

The insurgency has killed more than 61,000 people since 1989.