Kashmir quake victims united by phone link
Formalities being worked out to open LoC crossings - Delhi shoots down mobile phone proposal

HELD SRINAGAR—Kashmiris on Wednesday made direct phone calls to Azad Kashmir for the first time in 15 years to try to contact relatives after the devastating earthquake.
India announced on Tuesday night that it would lift restrictions on telephone links to Azad Kashmir, which were imposed in 1989.
The first call was placed by Abdul Gani (65) from the police control room in Srinagar to Muzaffarabad, police and witnesses said. “I was very happy to know that my relatives are fine,” Gani told reporters after the call. He also thanked the Indian prime minister for allowing the service.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh intervened personally to restore phone links after repeated demands from across the social spectrum in Kashmir, where divided families were frantic for news of relatives after the October 8-quake.
The Department of Telecommunications has set up four telephone centres — two in the worst-hit districts of Uri and Tangdar, officials said. Centres were also opened in Srinagar and in Jammu.
“These centres will permit people in held Jammu and Kashmir, who have relatives in Muzaffarabad, to contact them on the telephone, free of charge, for the next fortnight,” a foreign ministry official said.
Politicians, residents and officials hailed the government’s decision. “We welcome this humanitarian gesture,” said Mehbooba Mufti, the head of People’s Democratic Party.
“This service will bring immense relief to the thousands of people who have their relatives across the Line of Control (LoC) and are desperate to know about their welfare,” she said.
“The opening of these free centres will bring huge relief to people like me,” said 35-year-old Altaf Ahmed of Uri town. “I want to know about Tajamul Hussain, my cousin and his family. We are very anxious here”.
Authorities said the facility
would be available for 15 days initially.
Pakistan and India wrestled with the details of a historic opening of the Kashmir frontier as a series of aftershocks traumatized survivors 11 days after a devastating quake.
The United Nations said the fresh tremors were spreading fear among more than three million people left homeless and dependent on international aid by the October 8 quake, as well as causing dangerous landslides.
In Pakistan — where more than 41,000 died in the country’s worst natural disaster — a 5.8 magnitude shock was felt in the capital Islamabad and other northern cities at 7:34 am (0234 GMT), the seismological department said.
Less than an hour later a 5.4 magnitude tremor rumbled through.
The military in Muzaffarabad, the razed capital of Pakistani Kashmir, warned that the fresh aftershocks could cause buildings damaged by the original earthquake to collapse.
Across the frontier in India’s sector of divided Kashmir, where more than 1,300 people died in the main quake, a string of tremors shortly after midnight Wednesday sparked panic.
“People rushed out of their houses and took temporary refuge in open fields in Srinagar and other towns,” police said, referring to Indian’s Kashmir’s summer capital.
“Aftershocks continue to traumatize the survivors of the 8 October earthquake... and have triggered further landslides in already remote and high altitude areas,” the UN Emergency Response Centre in Islamabad said.
The UN said 20 percent of quake-hit regions had still not been reached by the armada of helicopters, trucks and mules trying to supply winter-proof tents, blankets, food and water to desperate survivors. Pakistan is in desperate need of choppers to reach far-flung villages.
A militant groups on Wednesday backed Islamabad’s call for India to allow Kashmiris to cross the heavily militarized frontier in the divided region hit by a deadly earthquake.
“It is in line with our position that the Line of Control is an unrealistic line,” Syed Salahuddin, head of the United Jihad Council, said of the cease-fire line dividing a region over which the two countries have fought two of their three wars.
“We have never accepted this Line of Control as a border in the past nor we will accept it in future,” he told Reuters by telephone from Muzaffarabad.
“We don’t think it will have any adverse impact on our freedom struggle,” he added. “Rather it will strengthen the cause of Kashmiris”.
The main separatist alliance in Indian Kashmir, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, also welcomed the dramatic proposal by President Pervez Musharraf to allow people to cross the LOC to help each other.
India promptly welcomed the offer and said it was awaiting a formal proposal from Pakistan, but there was no immediate word on how or when the nuclear-armed rivals would work out how to implement it.
The offer and its acceptance gave ordinary people in ruined Muzaffarabad a rare reason to smile.
President Pervez Musharraf’s proposal of easing movement of Kashmiris from both sides of LoC was on the humanitarian ground as well as in conformity with the foreign policy of Pakistan.
Stating this, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid M Kasuri told the BBC Radio in an interview that Musharraf and the government of Pakistan had displayed courage with regard to the Kashmir issue and relations with India.
“We have kept in view the situation created by this catastrophic earthquake, particularly the Kashmiri brethren who have been affected on both the sides of LoC,” he said.
Kasuri said the Kashmiris on both sides of LoC are related to one another and had love and affection for each other. Therefore, this decision to put forward the proposal had been taken on humanitarian ground that they should be allowed to meet each other, he said.
To a question, he said Pakistan gave a very positive response to the Indian offer of assistance for those affected by the October 8 quake.
India turned down a Pakistani proposal for establishing cross-LoC mobile telephone linkages in Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday but said direct telecom connections could be set up at Attari-Wagah border.
“We had received a Note Verbale from Pakistan wanting to establish mobile telephone linkages across the Line of Control. We have conveyed that communication linkages already exist through international satellite and undersea cable networks,” External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said in New Delhi.
He said if Pakistan wanted to establish direct optical fibre communication, it could be best done at Attari-Wagah where the optical fibres of both the countries are close to each other.
Sarna said India had conveyed its readiness to assist in restoration of disrupted telecom infrastructure in earthquake affected areas in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. “Pakistan’s foreign office said that it was grateful for the offer and would revert to us if any specific assistance was required,” Sarna said.
The Pakistan foreign office said 40 per cent of the telecom infrastructure had been restored and the remaining problems were on smaller branch lines, he said. Islamabad also said mobile phone companies had been given permission to operate in the area and these facilities were being set up, Sarna said.—INP