Friday, April 1 2005 22:30 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Pakistan has turned down the Indian request for allowing politicians from Jammu and Kashmir to travel along with the inaugural run of the bus from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad on April 7.

Highly-placed sources said tonight (Apr 1, 2005) that a communication was received from Pakistan denying the permission to eight politicians from mainstream Indian political parties to travel.

The Ministry of External Affairs had forwarded a list of eight politicians to Pakistani Government with a request that they be allowed to travel in a separate bus alongwith the first passenger bus proposed to be flagged off by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on April 7.

National Conference chief Omar Abdullah and his party colleague Abdul Rahim Rather, PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) president Mehbooba Mufti and her party colleague Rangeel Singh, State Deputy Chief Minister Mangat Ram Sharma, JKPCC (Jammu Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee) chief and Rural Development Minister Peerzada Mohammad Sayeed, Panther's Party chief Bhim Singh, and CPM (Communist PArty of India-Marxist) State secretary M Y Tarigami were to have travelled in a vehicle along with the bus.

BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) State president Nirmal Singh and K D Sethi refused to go protesting against passports not being used as travel documents.