Candles for peace light up Wagah on I-Day

The participants of the event—organised under the banner of the Hind-Pak Dosti Manch and Folklore Research Academy—received a warm welcome at Attari grain market, where a mega cultural and patriotic show was held.

There was also a heavyweight delegation from Pakistan comprising Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission Asma Jehangir, and members of the Pakistan National Assembly Itizaz Hassan, Rsi Aziz-ullah Khan and Chowdhry Manzoor Ahmed.

As Punjabi folk singers Balkar Sidhu and Bhagwant Mann began belting out soulful melodies, the massive crowd broke the cordon, forcing the police to lathicharge.

But the show went on and artistes from Pakistan, too, regaled the audience with their spirited presentations. Addressing the gathering, Manzoor Ahmed, MNA, Pakistan, touched a raw chord when he said politicians had engineered the partition of Punjab for vested interests. ‘‘Is it possible to believe that the Delhi-born Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf and the Sind-born former Indian Home Minister L K Advani are foes,’’ he asked the crowd, while explaining how hatred had been ‘‘pumped into our veins’’ by fanatics.

Jehangir, in her speech, said whether it was a war or a simple quarrel, women bear the brunt and many end up losing their husbands, sons and brothers.

Sounding a note of hope, Nayyar said the efforts started a decade back were finally beginning to bear fruit though a lot more still needed to be done.

As the peace caravan moved towards the zero line from Attari, the men in khaki again used force to prevent the people from stepping into the restricted area, where only a few leading lights from Pakistan were allowed.

Meanwhile, there was a deafening silence across the Radcliffe Line where alert Pak Rangers went about their work as usual.