Peace bus to connect rest of India to PoK

NO BORDER: The step is perhaps in the direction of making borders irrelevant.

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Srinagar: Bus travel across the LoC is now made simpler and open to every Indian. Any person from any part of the country with or without a relative on the other side can now travel on the Srinangar-Muzaffarabad bus.

The Ministry of External affairs has done away with the tiresome procedure of verification and re-verification. Instead there will be a triple permit system which means a person with just 2 references from PoK can travel to and fro three times without renewing the documents.

passport officer, J-K B S Manavalan said, ``Any Indian can travel on the bus, it was not so earlier. Only thing is that it will be up to PoK authorities whether they issue permit or not from our side there is no binding now.''

The Srinagar-Muzzaffarabad bus was started in 2005 to connect Kashmiri families separated by the LoC. The peace bus will now also connect rest of India to PoK.

There are two ways at looking at why the cross LoC bus travel is made easier. One, New Delhi has always held that PoK was its own territory and that an Indian citizen was free to go around in his or her own land and two, that the step is perhaps in the direction of making borders irrelevant.