Wagah, July 11
The metal doors on the Wagah joint check-post flung open with a clanging sound at 8.35 a.m. today as the gold-coloured “sada-e-sarhad” (voice of frontier) Lahore-Delhi bus, carrying 27 passengers and three crew members, crossed the Redcliff Line dividing the two neighbours.

Half of the passengers in the bus, belonging to the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC), were mediapersons from leading Urdu and English organisations from Lahore and Islamabad.

Though the bus was flagged off amidst a lot of fanfare at Flettis Hotel in Lahore by Mr Rayees Ryaz Munir, Federal Minister of Tourism, no senior official of the district administration or the state government reached here to welcome the passengers.

Unlike the inaugural ride of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on February 20, 1999, to Lahore when the Jamait-e-Islami protested against the visit and forced a bandh in some shopping areas, including the famous Anarkali Bazar, no protest was held by the fundamentalists in Pakistan this time.

The drivers of the PTDC bus (LXK 2425) Amir Khan and Qazi Mohammad Azub Khan said that the step of resuming the bus service was welcomed all over Pakistan. Both drivers had the opportunity to bring the inaugural bus from Lahore to New Delhi in 1999.

Meanwhile, visa problems stopped many passengers from boarding the 43-seater bus, in which 12 seats remained vacant. Zubeda Sultan, an Indian National married in Pakistan, who came in the bus, was sore that her husband was denied visa by the Indian Embassy since he was a Pakistani national. She asked the purpose of opening the land route if visas were being denied by the Indian Embassy. She came along with her two sons — Wahid Sultan (6) and Ryaz Sultan (4). Ms Sultan said that she suffered a lot due to the suspension of the bus service as she could not attend the burial of her brother and two nephews who died in New Delhi last year.

Mr Harshad Ali, a liaison officer with the PTDC, said that people of Pakistan were hopeful that the Samjhauta Express would also resume in the coming days.

Earlier, the Amritsar police rounded up at least 20 activists of the Shiv Sena (youth wing) who were planning to stage a protest in front of the bus. They were, however, released in the evening.

JALANDHAR: The Delhi and Lahore bound buses passed off peacefully through Phagwara amid-apprehensions of trouble by some Shiv Sena workers, even as the Delhi bound bus arrived at its first halt at the Kartarpur restaurant of the Punjab Tourism Department at around 12.15 p.m. — an hour behind schedule.

Ten workers of the Shiv Sena were arrested under Section 283 of the IPC by the police authorities to ward off any problem. The Lahore-bound bus reached Phagwara at around 1.20 p.m. while the Delhi-bound bus crossed Phagwara at around 1.27 p.m. without any trouble due to the heavy deployment of the police personnel.