Saturday, April 2 2005 15:39 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Islamabad: Pakistan sought to downplay its denial of permission to political leaders from Jammu and Kashmir to join the inaugural Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service.

It said the decision was taken to 'avoid controversy' and to give priority to divided families. "The bus service is basically run as a humanitarian measure to reduce the suffering of the divided families and to enable them to meet their loved ones.

It should be confined to those people... Pakistan accorded priority to them," Foreign Office Spokesman Jallil Abbas Jilani told PTI.

The other reason why Pakistan could not accommodate the additional requests of the politicians "was to avoid controversy," he said. "There are people trying to make certain controversies and we did not make it controversial," he said.

He also added the politicians names did not figure in the lists of passengers exchanged during designated dates. "The lists exchanged by the two sides on due dates did not contain the names of those subsequently mentioned," he said. The names of the politicians were suggested later.

Pakistan denied permission to a ten-member all-party delegation to join the journey across the Line of Control. The delegation was supposed to include ruling People's Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti, Opposition National Conference chief Omar Abdullah, Pradesh Congress President Peerzada Mohammad Sayeed.