Cross-LoC bus brings nostalgic moments for divided families
Shariq Majeed
Tribune News Service

Poonch, March 13
Every Monday as the cross-Line of Control (LoC) bus, which runs on a weekly basis, leaves from the college ground here taking visitors from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) back, there is not a single person among the crowd who can actually control his emotions.

A PoK visitor leaves on the cross-LoC Poonch-Rawlakote bus after meeting his relatives. A Tribune photograph

Talk to anyone in the euphoric crowd, majority of whom are members of divided families, bang comes the assertion that not only did the Partition divide a single nation but also the territorial boundaries separated the humanity. The Partition and the three wars between the two countries overKashmir did nothing good but to divide brothers from sisters, parents from their children is the common sentiment among the crowd of predominantly divided family members.

“The founders of Pakistan and India as two nations did nothing good to the people living on the either side. The worst thing they did was to divide the humanity. I am living here in India and just 50 km from here in PoK, my three brothers lived for 44 years after they got separated from me during the 1965 war, and we couldn’t meet each other,” said Muhammad Sadeeq of Sakhi Maidan in Mendhar, whose brother Nazeer Hussain, presently living in the Pang Piraan area of Kotli in PoK, left on the cross-LoC bus this week after he came here 28 days back on a travel document.

“Though my brother stayed here for 28 days, when he was leaving I felt that someone has cut my body part and threw it away,” he murmured with tears rolling down his wrinkled cheeks.

Nazeer Hussain, brother of Muhammad Sadeeq, became so much emotional that he couldn't speak much. He simply said, “The Partition didn't divide us from each other but separated our souls. It is very painful for family members to live in two countries”.

“What a destiny we the divided families have come with? We never wanted this type of division that separates sisters from their brothers, sons and daughters from their parents. Those who engineered such division couldn’t reap much harvest but they committed biggest sin by dividing people,” said Abdul Ghani (65), a resident of this frontier district, who had applied for travel permit in May 2005, to visit Muzzafarabad in PoK but he is yet to get the same and in the meantime, he has lost 70 of his relatives there. “For the last about four years, I have been approaching the authorities to know the status of my permit application. I do go to the college stadium here quite often to send letters to my relatives and return with pain after seeing the visitors from PoK going back”. Poonch and Mendhar tehsils of this border districts have the highest percentage of divided families. According to an estimate, 60 per cent of the families living in these tehsils are divided ones.

Every Monday, PoK returnees as well as Indian visitors leave from here on cross-LoC Poonch-Rawlakote bus whereas visitors from PoK and Indian returnees come here on the bus. The Poonch-Rawlakote bus service was started by India and Pakistan as a major confidence building measure in June 2006.