India-Pakistan Bus Service Gets on Road
The first commercial bus service between Pakistan and India in more than 50 years left Lahore on Tuesday carrying 20 passengers and hopes that it will help normalize relations between the two archfoes.
The service was inaugurated Feb. 20 by Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in a cross-border visit with his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, aimed at putting relations on a better footing after their nations conducted several nuclear tests in May.
Violent demonstrations against last month’s meeting led officials to take no chances with security Tuesday.
Two Pakistani commandos sat on the bus during the hourlong drive to the border crossing, where they were replaced by Indian soldiers for the rest of the 10-hour trip to New Delhi.
The bus is a luxury service by the standards of road travel on the subcontinent, with video films, music and television provided en route.
Pakistan’s and India’s Western donors hope that the bus service will be another step in boosting relations between the two countries, which have fought three wars since they gained independence from Britain in 1947.
Vajpayee and Sharif agreed in their “Lahore Declaration” to work for better relations and to solve their dispute over Kashmir, the divided Himalayan region over which two of their countries’ three wars have been fought.
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