Dhaka bus crosses milestone

Reinforcing that this was just the beginning of the journey towards peace and goodwill, Vajpayee promised that more routes would be opened up, more rail services introduced. The inaugural bus run, he said, was 8220;only the beginning of many more such facilities8221; for the common people of both countries.

West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu, who had played a crucial role in the Ganga water pact, hoped the bus journey would open up roads to more extensive economic and cultural cooperation. Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abdus SamadAzad was all praise for Basu for his role in the water pact and also for getting the bus on the road.

Vajpayee arrived here this morning accompanied by External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh and others. Before the bus reached Dhaka this evening, Vajpayee called on Bangladesh President Sahabuddin Ahmad and discussed bilateral issues with Sheikh Hasina. Vajpayee had last visited Bangladesh as External Affairs Minister in the Morarji Desai government in 1977.

A black-flag protest by a small fundamentalist organisation went virtually unnoticed. Even the issue of Bengali writer Sunil Gangopadhyay8217;s exclusion from the invitees to the bus trip did not create much of a ripple here, though he is a popular name in local cultural circles. 8220;Well, some of us felt bad about it but for the common people, the bus service was more important and positive than that,8221; said well-known Bangladeshi theatre personality Asadduzzan Noor.

The inaugural bus took about 12 hours to cover the distance of 360 km, but it is themighty Padma river, over which the vehicles are ferried, which makes the journey that long. But for the passengers, who included journalists, government officials and some eminent personalities from Calcutta, it was a landmark journey that people on both sides of the border cheered.

8220;It was a great feeling to be a passenger of the historic first bus,8221; said Basanta Choudhury, veteran Bengali film actor, who along with Amlan Datta, former vice-chancellor of Visva-Bharati, and West Bengal Ministers Manab Mukherjee and Sushanta Ghosh, got down from the bus after crossing over to Bangladesh to be flown to Dhaka in a helicopter.

Welcoming the passengers of the bus, Vajpayee mentioned bilateral issues like narcotic drugs, transborder crime and insurgency. The vexed issue of infiltration from Bangladesh into India reportedly had also come up during the Prime Ministers8217; talks, though Vajpayee didn8217;t mention this in his speech. A spokesperson of the Indian External Affairs Ministry later told reporters that thefocus was more on trade and transport, though issues of common concern were also discussed.

Travellers between the two countries, Vajpayee said, included students in large numbers, patients, businessmen, tourists, pilgrims and tourists who had relatives and friends on either side of the border. The absence of a direct bus service meant the travellers had to walk across the border with their luggage. As air travel was expensive, the bus service would go a long way in making the passage easier for the people.

Hasina too described the bus service as the long-cherished desire of the 8220;common people of India and Bangladesh.8221; She recalled the Ganga water agreement as well as last year8217;s peace accord in the Chittagong Hill Tracts which facilitated the return of thousands of Chakma refugees who had been living in camps for over 10 years.