Details of first cross-Kashmir peace bus run

Peace Bridge, India/Pakistan border - The first bus service from Indian Kashmir to Pakistani Kashmir in more than half a century is due to begin on Thursday, giving a big boost to the peace process between the nuclear-armed powers.

Security is tight and a suicide attack aimed at the passengers on Wednesday has added menace to separatist threats to turn the bus into a coffin.

Rebels stormed and torched a complex sheltering passengers in Srinagar, Indian Kashmir's main city and summer capital. All the passengers escaped the assault uninjured.

Following are some details of how the service will run and what the passengers will face:

-- The bus from Indian Kashmir will be seen off by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at a time still secret due to security.

-- The dusty and rugged highway runs 170km from Srinagar, west to the ceasefire line and then northwest to Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir.

-- Twenty-four passengers have been approved by Indian and Pakistani authorities from the Indian side for the first run.

-- Because the road is narrow and dangerous, two 18-seater buses are expected to be used rather than a single large bus.

-- The ride will take about four-and-a-half hours for the 120km from Srinagar to the border and about two hours for the 50km from the border to Muzaffarabad.

-- It will take about an hour for the passengers to go through security and document checks at newly constructed buildings on each side of the frontier.

-- The buses will not cross the border. Passengers will have to walk several hundred metres over the "Peace Bridge" and change vehicles.

-- The actual Line of Control -- the haphazard ceasefire line that divides Indian and Pakistani Kashmir -- passes through the middle of the bridge in the no man's land between the two immigration checkpoints.

-- On the Indian side, the highway runs through rice paddies and apple orchards before entering the towering Pir Panjal ranges, part of the Himalayas.

The steep and heavily forested mountains, many permanently snow-capped, tower on the left. The surging, boulder-strewn Jhelum River races on the right, with often a precipitous straight drop from the road to the water just feet from the bus' wheels.

-- Artillery guns on the banks of the river point in opposite directions within a few hundred metres of each other. On the Indian side, they have been covered with camouflage nets or hidden from the road with new tin fences.

- REUTERS