A Pakistan-based militant group on yesterday threatened to disrupt a historic new bus service across the military line that divides Kashmir if it led to more "atrocities" by Indian forces in the disputed Himalayan region.
The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan on Wednesday announced that the beginning of the service April 7 -- the most concrete outcome yet from a year of peace talks, raising hopes for a permanent rapprochement between the two nuclear-armed countries.
The decision was greeted with joy by families separated by Kashmir's militarized border, the Line of Control.
It will be first such road link between the two portions of Kashmir since Pakistan and India fought their first war there in 1947.
But militant groups fighting in Indian-held Kashmir for independence or merger with Pakistan viewed it as a setback.
"This will weaken the idea of Kashmir uniting with Pakistan. This is a conspiracy by India to weaken jihad," Mufti Abdur Rauf, a spokesman for the outlawed militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed, told reporters.
"We will see what benefits India wants to get from this bus service. If it infiltrates spies into Azad Kashmir [Pakistan-held Kashmir] and there is an increase in atrocities by Indian security forces in the occupied Kashmir [Indian-held Kashmir], we will certainly try to stop it," he said.
The buses will travel along a rutted mountain road in the folds of the Himalayas linking Muzzafarabad on the Pakistani side with Srinagar on the Indian side.
Despite the bus service agreement, the two governments remain poles apart on their territorial dispute over Kashmir, cause of two of their three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.
Both sides claim the region in its entirety.
More than 66,000 people have died since an Islamic insurgency began about 15 years ago, many at the hands of Indian troops.
New Delhi accuses Pakistan of funding and training the rebels. Islamabad insists it gives only moral and political support.
After talks in Islamabad on Wednesday, visiting Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh spoke positively about the future of the peace process, but he also cautioned that any progress could only be achieved if attacks are curtailed.
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
Chinese authorities are snuffing out any remembrance of the deadly 1989 military crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, which happened 37 years ago yesterday, in a further tightening of a years-long campaign to erase what happened from public memory. Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Relatives of the victims visited the cemetery on the anniversary for more than 30 years to read memorial statements with police keeping watch, Amnesty International said. Hundreds of people,
RSS