68 people crosse sides at Kaman post in J and K

Srinagar, Jan 3 (UNI) As many as 68 people, including 25 women and seven children, on board the Karvaan-e-Aman buses, crossed sides at Kaman post today, the last Indian military post on the Line of Control (LoC) in Uri sector in Jammu and Kashmir.

Official sources said 39 people, including 14 women and five children, left here for Kaman post this morning in Karvaan-e-Aman buses under tight security arrangements.

At Kaman post, they deboarded the buses and crossed the Aman setu on foot to reach other side of the LoC from where they were taken to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) capital, Muzaffarabad.

They said there were 14 people, half of them women, who were going to POK for the first time to meet their relatives separated in 1947 partition.

Twenty-five others, including seven women and five children were going back to POK after meeting their relatives here for the first time since partition, they added.

Similarly, from POK 14 people, including six women and a child, arrived here for the first time to meet their relatives while 15 others, including five women and one child, returned here after meeting their relatives in POK.

About 6000 people have visited their relatives here and in POK since the cross-border bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad has been started.

The bus service between was launched by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from here on April 7, 2005, after nearly 58 years following an agreement reached between India and Pakistan to allow families, separated since 1947, to meet each other.

The 170-km Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road, also known as the Jhelum Valley road, was closed for traffic on October 27, 1947, when ''Kabailis'' (tribesmen) invaded parts of Jammu and Kashmir which later came to be known as PoK.

UNI BAS GL GC1749