“I can’t believe I’m back home,” the grandmother, 70, said as she returned in a wheelchair to the land where she was born and raised. “This is the greatest moment in my life.”

She was not alone in her emotion. There were scenes of joy at the border post yesterday as the first buses crossed the line of control since the division of Kashmir in the aftermath of India’s Partition in 1947.

Some families were being united for the first time. Hundreds of onlookers cheered and threw petals as the symbolic land link between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad, the capitals of Kashmir’s two halves, was restored.

But for one half-hearted grenade attack early in the day, the Islamic militants who had threatened to turn the buses into coffins were nowhere to be seen and their dire warnings were largely ignored by a population weary of conflict.

“The caravan of peace has started,” proclaimed Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, as he sent off two Muzaffarabad-bound buses, garlanded with marigolds and carrying 21 passengers, in front of a crowd of thousands braving freezing drizzle in Srinagar. “Nothing can stop it.”

The militants tried. On Wednesday, fearing that the bus link would undermine their battle against Indian rule, they stormed the heavily guarded government hostel in Srinagar where the passengers were staying for their own protection.

Five terrified passengers dropped out at the last minute. The militants threw a grenade and fired shots as the buses neared the town of Singhpura.

But nobody was hurt and the militants proved no match for the thousands of heavily armed troops who lined the entire 180km (110 mile) route along the Jhelum River valley.

The buses, escorted by armoured vehicles and lorryloads of soldiers, stopped for lunch at the Indian town of Salamabad. Children waved flags, music played and cooks prepared a traditional feast.

In every village and town there were people cheering, whistling and waving. At the Kaman bridge — painted a neutral white for the occasion — Indian and Pakistani flags fluttered as passengers dismounted and walked across the line of control that has long divided this Himalayan land.

Later, another bus arrived from Muzaffarabad, its 31 passengers bound for Srinagar.

On both sides of the militarised border, in an area that was once shelled almost daily, crowds of locals gathered on the sides of the rocky Pir Panjal mountains to watch divided families greeting each other for the first time in decades, if ever.

Sharif Hussain Bukhari, a retired Pakistani high court judge, was overwhelmed when he saw his sister and a niece at the post. He wept and hugged them for several minutes. “I have seen my niece for the first time,” he said in a voice choked with emotion.

“There is a risk but I am taking the risk so that this bus is the first step towards a resolution of Kashmir. The line of control could fall like the Berlin Wall.” Most of the passengers travelling to Srinagar were elderly men and women who were reuniting with their family members after more than five decades. They were largely undaunted by the threat of attack. Shahid Bahar, a lawyer from Muzaffarabad, said: “I can’t control my emotion. I am setting foot in my motherland.”

Mr Bahar, whose father crossed over in 1949, said: “I am coming here for the first time to meet my blood relations. It was my dream. It is unbelievable. Everyone is here.”

The inauguration of the bus service, which will run twice a month, marked the biggest advance yet in the peace process that Mr Singh’s predecessor, Atal Behari Vajpayee, began two years ago in the same Srinagar stadium from which yesterday’s buses left.

“A door has opened,” Mr Singh said in an address delivered from behind bullet-proof glass. “Pakistan, and especially President General Pervez Musharraf, have helped us open this door and without their support, the door would not have opened. This is the beginning of a new phase. Violence is not going to solve any problems.”

Sikandar Hayat, the Pakistani sector’s Prime Minister, called the restoration of the bus service an historic step. “I hope they (India’s leaders) read the writing on the wall and fulfil their responsibility with regard to international politics.”

TORN BETWEEN TWO COUNTRIES

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