Reuters.com

Pakistan, India resume train service after 40 years

By Aamir Ashraf

ZERO POINT, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan and India resumed a train service across the Thar desert on Saturday, 40 years after it was suspended following the second of the three wars between the two South Asian rivals.  

Sitting on camels, paramilitary troops patrolled the desert as the train arrived at Pakistan's southern border village of Khokhropar for its onward journey to Munabao in India's Rajasthan state. It arrived at Manabao later on Saturday.

Many passengers burst into tears and shouted "Long Live Pak-India friendship" as the Thar Express halted at Zero Point, the last stop on the Pakistani side of the border.

Dancers wearing traditional dresses danced to the beat of drums to greet the train, decorated with colorful buntings.

"I was 13 years old when I came here. Now I am going to my home for the first time after 58 years," said Mohammad Ali Azhar, whose parents migrated to Pakistan to escape bloodshed that killed hundreds of thousands of people following partition of the sub-continent in 1947.

At around 2 p.m (0830 GMT), the flower-bedecked train with "Queen of the Desert" and "Bridge of friendship" written on it, crossed the India-Pakistan border.

A few minutes later it reached Munabao -- a sleepy village in western Rajasthan.

Hundreds of people and security personnel greeted the train along its 2-km (one mile) journey from the border to Munabao.

At the station, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav received the passengers, some of whom had gifts in their hands and tears in their eyes.

"History has been repeated. I am very glad to be in India," Jan Zahad, the train driver, told Reuters.

Zahad said he drove the last Pakistani train out of India in 1965 when the two countries went to war and the service halted.

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