INDIA: Their eyes brimming with tears and voices choked with emotion, two groups of Indian and Pakistani Kashmiris yesterday walked over the "peace bridge" dividing the disputed principality, writes Rahul Bedi in New Delhi.
Following a thaw in relations between the two nuclear rivals they were visiting relatives separated more than 60 years ago
Nineteen Indian Kashmiris, mostly elderly and wearing green commemorative caps, defied separatist threats and crossed the metal bridge - painted a neutral white for the occasion - hours after 31 Pakistanis walked the other way into India.
Both groups were arriving to restore familial ties disrupted by bitter war at the time of the subcontinent's partition by the British colonial administration in 1947 into India and Pakistan.
"I can't control my emotions. I am setting foot in my motherland," a tearful Shahid Bahar, a lawyer from Muzzafarabad the capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir said.
"I am coming here for the first time to meet my blood relations," said Mr Bahar, whose father crossed over into India-administered Kashmir in 1949.
"It was my dream. It is unbelievable. Everyone is here. It's for the first time that I have seen my uncle," sobbed Noreen Arif, an adviser to Pakistani Kashmir's prime minister, bursting into tears and hugging him as he stepped off the bridge.
A large billboard greeted passengers at the peace bridge with the message: No religion teaches animosity towards each other.
Passengers arriving from either side of the heavily militarised line of control that divides Kashmir crossed the bridge on foot and boarded buses for the onward drive to Muzaffarabad and Srinagar respectively.
"The caravan of peace has started," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said as the Pakistan-bound bus set off, cheered by thousands in the state's summer capital, Srinagar. "Nothing can stop it," he said with quiet determination.
"This is the beginning of a new phase. Violence is not going to solve any problems," Mr Singh added.
Security in Indian Kashmir was heavy after a series of attacks by Islamic separatists fighting for an independent homeland who threatened to turn the buses into rolling coffins, scared off some passengers.
On the eve of the maiden bus journey two Muslim guerrillas launched a suicide attack on a fortified government complex in Srinagar housing the passengers, torching the building. The passengers escaped unhurt but five pulled out of the journey.