For the first time after resumption of the cross-LoC bus service on the Poonch-Rawalakot route this month, 21 residents of Jammu and Kashmir today travelled across the border to meet their relatives, officials said.
As many as 51 Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) residents also arrived here, while four PoK residents returned by the bus, they said.
The weekly bus service, popularly known as 'paigam-e- amun' or message of peace, resumed on November 6 after remaining suspended for nearly four months owing to heavy Pakistani shelling along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district.
While 126 residents of PoK came to this side since the resumption of the service, nobody travelled from here apparently due to apprehension of ceasefire violation and subsequent suspension of the service, the officials said.
Of the 126 PoK residents, 14 returned last week.
With the arrival of a fresh batch of 51 PoK residents today, a total of 177 passengers have arrived here from across the border.
Billed as the biggest confidence building measure, the bus service was started on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad route in the Kashmir Valley in April 2005 and the Poonch-Rawalakot route in the Jammu region on June 20, 2006 to facilitate easier trade and travel between the divided families of Jammu and Kashmir and PoK.
The trade between the two parts of Kashmir started in October 2008 on barter system.
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