It is a five-hour journey through beautiful scenery in the northern foothills of the Himalayas. But when 20 passengers boarded two coaches under the snow-capped peaks in Srinagar last week, India’s state capital in Jammu and Kashmir, they were embarking on the world’s most dangerous bus trip.
The spectacular attack the day before by suicide bombers on a heavily guarded tourist centre, which had been home to the passengers for three days, underlined the determination of some to stop the group of elderly couples from being reunited with long-lost relatives from across the border in Pakistan’s portion of Kashmir.
The quiet of a sunny Srinagar afternoon was ripped apart by the crackle of submachine fire and the dull crump of grenade explosions. As the two gunmen ran amok in the centre, the complex of wooden buildings quickly began to burn.
People ran screaming towards the inferno, hoping that family members had not been consumed by flames. Five people were injured in gun battles between Indian troops and the attackers. One guerrilla was killed.
Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir, and its predominately Muslim population, for themselves and have fought three wars over the state since Britain left the subcontinent 58 years ago. The region now lies divided between both countries and its two halves have been sealed since partition.
Tracing the 128km from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad — the capital of the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir — along the dizzying gorges and icy slopes of the Jhelum valley, past apple orchards and saffron fields, the bus route is the first link between the Indian and Pakistani portions of the divided state.
Thursday’s opening of the road is the most tangible benefit of a 14-month-old peace process between India and Pakistan for those living on the floor of the valley.
”We always knew that there would be trouble and the bus starting was not going to end the militancy. But we will go on regardless,” said Omar Abdullah, a Kashmiri MP in India’s Parliament.
But the armed separatist groups, which appeared until recently to be patronised by Pakistan as a legitimate freedom struggle, said that such moves are part of an Indian plot to pacify the insurgency. They warned that those taking the five-hour ride would be entering not a vehicle but a ”coffin”. That threat alone caused five people to drop out. But most decided to run the risk.
When the Bhats left their family home earlier this week they took their most precious possession: a black suitcase packed with presents for grandchildren they had only ever seen in photographs. The bag was all 65-year-old Mohammad Abdullah Bhat and his wife Fatima could grab before they were forced into hiding by death threats, personally delivered to their home. The message came from the same Islamic militant groups that launched the suicide raid on Wednesday. For the Bhats, however, it was not political considerations but family that drove their desire to get tickets for the historic journey.
Bhat has not seen his brothers since the partition of British India in 1947. A half century has passed in which he has missed funerals and weddings. Desperate to bring his family together Bhat married his daughter, Wazira Begum, to his younger brother’s son 17 years ago.
But the blood feud between two nations, born from the womb of the empire, ensured that Bhat’s family remained apart. He spent a fortune travelling to Delhi, only to be repeatedly denied visas to travel to Pakistani Kashmir. In the intervening years, Bhat has missed seeing his four grandchildren and his daughter grow up.
”My father knows the risk he is taking. But he says he is an old man now and even if he is killed because of this bus he will die happy because he would have seen my sister and her children,” says Ishrat, Bhat’s youngest daughter.
Thursday’s road opening also signalled a new working relationship between India and Pakistan, which, in the past, have seen hopes of peace raised only to have them dashed a few months later.
Aware of the bus’s significance, Indian authorities have gone to great lengths to spruce up Srinagar and surrounding towns. Highways and bridges are decked out with lighting and bunting. Fresh coats of paint are being applied to homes and shops along the route. There are signs in Urdu proclaiming ”Army and People together with peace as a destination”.
However, the heavy presence of troops, roadblocks and guns poking out of heavily fortified bunkers lend the place a surreal air. There are signs of a nascent peace, but the look is of a city under siege. — Â