Bus will run on schedule: Patil

Describing the morale of the passengers of the inaugural bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad "high", Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil today said the bus would run tomorrow "as per schedule."

After a high-level meeting convened to review the security situation, Patil said he would accompany Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Chairperson Sonia Gandhi to Srinagar tomorrow.

Patil said the Centre was in touch with the Jammu and Kashmir government and he had spoken to Chief Minister Mufti Mohd Sayeed as also Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad who was there.

"The morale of the people and passengers is high and the bus will leave for Muzaffarabad as per schedule," Patil said.

"We have taken stock of the situation. Obviously, it was a desperate act of some terrorists and organisations with an intent to disrupt the ongoing peace process," Patil said.

He said all passengers who were to take the bus to Muzaffarabad were safe.

"In all 24 passengers were to go and all 24 are absolutely safe," he said.

The minister said the passengers were not housed at all in the building, which was attacked - the administrative block. He said while 22 passengers were housed in another building, two others were in Baramulla.

Patil said the two militants, who had carried out the attack, had been "liquidated". Six persons were injured at the site, including one policeman, but none of them have suffered critical injury," he said.