LoC bus service resumes after 18 days

SRINAGAR: The Srinagar-Muzaffarbad bus service resumed on Monday after 18 days of suspension following the seizure of narcotics from a Pakistani truck at Salamabad in Uri in Baramulla district.
Sixty-four passengers travelled to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and back through the bus service on Monday, said Firdous Iqbal, regional passport officer, Srinagar.Ten of them were from PoK and had been stranded in Srinagar due to the suspension of the bus service on January 17.
In retaliation to that day’s arrest of truck driver Mohammad Shafiq by J&K police on charges of smuggling 114 kg of brown sugar into the Kashmir Valley, Pakistani authorities had held 27 Kashmiri truck drivers as hostage. The Kashmiri drivers had been taking food items and other listed items to PoK. Pakistani authorities are yet to release them and have demanded that Shafiq be released first.
Traders in J&K said they suffered a loss of Rs 16 crore during the period of the bus service’s suspension.