Karvan-e-Aman bus leaves for PoK

Srinagar, Jul 16: The Karvan-e-Aman bus, operating between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) left here on Monday morning to cross over to other side of the Line of Control (LoC), official sources said.

The weekly bus left with six passengers—a Kashmiri and five PoK returnees—Bemina Srinagar this morning for Kaman post, the last Indian military post on this side of the LoC in Uri sector, they told UNI.

The bus has since reached Trade Facilitation Centre (TFC) at Uri, where more passengers will board it before proceeding towards Kaman post. The exact number of passengers travelling to other side of the LoC will be known in the afternoon. Similarly, the number of visitors coming from PoK will also be known in the evening.

The bus service, one of the major Confidence Building Measures (CBM) taken by India and Pakistan, was introduced on April 7, 2005 to help families divided in 1947 due to partition, to meet each other. However, only state subjects from both sides are eligible to travel on “ Travel Permits” instead of International passport, in the bus provided their names are cleared by intelligence agencies from both the countries. The service has helped thousands of divided families to meet each other.