No Karvan-e-Aman bus between Srinagar-PoK

There will be no Karvan-e-Aman bus service, operating between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), on Monday, official sources said. The weekly bus service has been suspended due to Deepawali festival, sources told UNI. They said the service was suspended after the authorities in PoK and here agreed in view of the festival.

''We are suspending the service on big occasions, including Eid, Independence Days of both India and Pakistan as a precautionary measure,'' they added. All the passengers who were scheduled to travel in the bus were informed about the suspension of the bus service, sources said, adding they will be accommodated in next bus on October 23. The weekly bus service was one of the Confidence Building Measure (CBM) taken by India and Pakistan to allow families divided due to partition in 1947 to meet each other.

Despite opposition by militant outfits, the first bus was flagged off by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on April 7, 2005. Almost all separatist leaders, barring chairman of hardline Hurriyat Conference (HC) Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Democratic Freedom Party chief Shabir Ahmad Shah, have travelled in the bus to other side of the border. The bus has helped thousands of divided families to meet each other since their separation in 1947. However, only state subjects from both sides are eligible to travel in the peace bus provided their names are cleared by the intelligence agencies from both the countries.