Rahul Bedi
in New Delhi
Train services between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan resumed yesterday after a two-year gap during which the neighbours came close to war.
Resumption of the Samjhuta, or Friendship, Express, which was freshly painted in green and yellow and festooned with bunting, nudges forward last week's peace efforts in which India and Pakistan agreed to begin negotiations next month on all outstanding issues.
These include the dispute over Kashmir state, divided between the two and over which they have fought three of four wars since independence in 1947.
Pakistan's alleged support for cross-border terrorism in Kashmir, which is denied by Islamabad, will also feature in the proposed talks.
The train carried 76 passengers from the Pakistani border city of Lahore to Atari, 1km inside India, in a journey lasting less than half-an-hour.
It returned later in the afternoon with around 200 passengers, including 100-year-old Haji Jammu Khan, who were showered on arrival by railway officials with rose petals and greeted by joyous relatives and friends.
Many passengers were meeting relatives after years. Shamma Parveen, a 24-year-old Indian Muslim woman married to a Pakistani, who was travelling to India to see her mother, could barely contain her excitement. "Right after I stepped into the train, I felt as if I had hugged my mother," she said.
Security was tight on both sides of the border as protection against attacks by militants opposed to peace.
Resumption of the bi-weekly rail service, halted along with air and road links following the attack on India's parliament by suicide gunmen in December 2001 which Delhi claimed was backed by Pakistan, are part of growing confidence-building measures between the two antagonists.