Troops defuse powerful landmines on Kashmir bus route

In this picture taken 22 March 2005, 82-year-old Kashmiri Abdul Gani Mir gestures during an interview with AFP at his home in Srinagar. Mir wants to drive a bus one more time between Srinagar, the summer capital of the Indian zone of the Himalayan region, and Muzaffarabad in the Pakistani sector -- something he last did before war severed the link in 1947. Mir used to pilot the 19-seater buses plying the route from Srinagar, through Muzaffarabad and on to Rawalpindi, adjoining the Pakistani capital Islamabad. PHOTO: AFP

The discovery of the landmines on the heavily-patrolled highway near Palhalan comes before the Thursday start of the bus service between Indian Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar and Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistani-zone.

"Troops detected two roadside landmines buried under soil at Palhalan which were defused later," a police spokesman said. "The mines were very powerful. They weighed 70 and 60 kilograms (154 and 132 pounds) each. The troops have averted a major tragedy."

Palhalan is 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Srinagar.

On Monday, Indian authorities successfully completed a practice run of the bus service over the same route.

Militant groups fighting a 15-year Islamic insurgency in Indian Kashmir that has left thousands dead, earlier this week labelled the bus a "coffin" and urged Kashmiris to shun the service.

The road is used daily by hundreds of civilian and military vehicles to move and police maintain round-the-clock surveillance of the road.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will flag off the bus from Srinagar's Sheri-Kashmir Cricket Stadium on Thursday, while the prime minister of Pakistan's sector, Sikandar Hayat, will simultaneously inaugurate the service in Muzaffarabad.

The bus has also been hailed as a way of reuniting families divided after the partition of the state in 1947 by a de facto ceasefire border known as the Line-of-Control.