Wednesday, May 4 2005 12:52 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Hajipeer (Poonch): With India and Pakistan having agreed to give a new route to the caravan of peace following Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service, Indian Army faces the onerous task of de-mining Poonch-Rawalkot road, where no civilian has treaded in nearly six decades and make it operational in six months.

Zig-zagging through the famous Hajipeer mountain ranges, the 29 km Line of Control (LoC) road is seeded with hundreds of anti-personnel and anti-tank mines on both sides due to Indo-Pak confrontation and infiltration of militants, 16 corps commander, Lt Gen Sudhir Sharma said.

"It is the road less travelled. To be precise, this LoC road has not been travelled by any civilian for the last 34 years and was closed for traffic in 1947 after the partition of the region," Army officials said.

The road as well as bridges were damaged in 1971 Indo-Pak war, as Hajipeer through which this road runs, was the worst battle field in that conflict, they said.

The last Indian house-a mud-clad sky-blue hut of Din Mohmmad Gujjar dots Salotra mountainous landscape, which marks the point till which people of this border district can walk up to from Poonch town, nearly 4 kms away from Hajipeer.

Last Indian check-post is a Border Security Force (BSF) check and across the border it is a Pak TCP (traffic checkpoint). Both names are reminiscent of the pre-1947 trade between the nations, they said.

Three kilometres ahead is the big bridge, which would connect Poonch to Madharpur, the first Pakistani village on this route. Two 12-foot pillars, (both in Pakistan territory) stand there as reminder of the past link and of the damage the bridge suffered in the 1971 war.

The four-km long macadamised road on the Poonch-Rawalkote route ends at Salotra village, which is 2 kms ahead of Jallas village on Indian side. There is a check post at Salotri.

From Salotri a six-foot-wide four-km kuccha road, sidelined by a double fence and landmines runs till the BSF check point cuts across thick forests along the sides the Poonch river which acts as a natural boundary between the nations.

After passing through four more checkpoints and a "vehicle gate" of two km, the last Indian check-post comes and ahead of this are thick mine-laid forests a narrow side track.

There are three small bridges and one big bridge on the Pak side and 10 km of road-length to be constructed and de-mined to be made trafficable, they said.

"The border in Hajipeer is peculiar in the last 10-km stretch, there is no population and building this road is most difficult," BSF Commandant J S Oberoi said.

The opening of the road would give chance to people on both sides of LoC to unite. The link was a vital trade route with goods from the Poonch belt being traded in the Rawalakote Mandi, he said.