Agence France Presse

New Delhi, March 12:

India’s prime minister will personally flag off the first bus to travel between the Indian and Pakistan zones of divided Kashmir in almost six decades when the service resumes next month, an official said today. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Kashmir in April will be his third since he assumed office in May. “The prime minister will be in Srinagar to flag off the first bus on April 7,” Singh’s spokesman said. The bus service is the first tangible result of 14 months of dialogue between the nuclear-armed neighbours. India and Pakistan agreed last month that Kashmiri residents would not need passports to cross the divided state by bus but would use permits issued by the civil administration after being cleared by police. Indian authorities last week said some 150 permits had been issued to applicants from Indian-Kashmir to travel by the bus linking Srinagar to Muzaffarabad, capital of the Pakistan-administered zone. Of the 150 applicants, 60 will be short-listed for the first two trips.