Key Route For Quake Relief Cleared

The road in Indian Kashmir leading to the heavily militarized frontier with Pakistan has been cleared ahead of the planned opening of earthquake relief camps next week, an official said Thursday.

India's Border Roads Organization cleared debris and landslides from the Oct. 8 quake, making it up to the Kaman post, the last point on the Indian side of the so-called Line of Control that divides the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir, said Brig. S.S. Dasaka, the organization's chief engineer.

The 75-mile long road is now open to light vehicles, which will carry aid next week to the relief camps being opened by India for Pakistani victims of the quake, he said.

"Earlier, we had estimated to reopen the highway in about two months, but for transporting relief supplies ... we worked relentlessly and the road has been opened in less than a month," Dasaka said.

Last weekend, India and Pakistan hashed out an unprecedented agreement to partially open the heavily militarized frontier in Kashmir on Nov. 7 to allow Pakistani quake victims to seek help at Indian aid camps.

The quake killed about 78,000 people in Pakistan and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. More than 1,300 people died on the Indian side of Kashmir. An estimated 3.3 million others were left homeless and fears for their lives are growing as winter closes in.

Procedures for crossing the border would be similar to those implemented earlier this year when the historic bus service between the two capitals of disputed Kashmir, Muzaffarabad and Srinagar, was restarted.

People wanting to cross will have to apply for a permit from government officials on either side to verify their identities. They will, however be allowed to cross on foot.

Crossing the land border in Kashmir was forbidden for 58 years until Pakistan and India agreed to a twice-monthly bus service earlier this year, one of the most tangible results so far of a two-year peace process to bury their history of acrimony and settle their competing claims to Kashmir.

But the bus service will have to wait for the Peace Bridge to be repaired. The quake collapsed the piers on the Pakistani side of the span, Dasaka said.

Opening up the border is a particularly sensitive issue for India because of a 16-year Islamic insurgency in its part of Kashmir by militants seeking independence or the region's merger with Pakistan.