UNI

Srinagar, May 24: A plan by suspected militants to derail the peace process by targeting ''Karvan-e-Aman'' bus, carrying 22 passengers to Muzaffarabad from here, the capital of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK), was today foiled by police when they detected and defused a powerful Improvised Explosive Device (IED) on the route.

The foiled attempt was made two days after POK Prime Minister Sardar Attique Ahmad Khan, in an interview with a leading English daily of the state, ''Greater Kashmir,'' had said that two more crossing points would be opened on the Line of Control (LoC) for the families divided since 1947.

There are already five points where people from both sides of the LoC are crossing sides.

Official sources said a police patrol party on a routine checking for the security of the Muzaffarabad bound passengers, noticed a tin on the roadside at Lawaypora, about 15 km from here in north Kashmir this morning at 0720 hours.

The bus with the passengers had left Sriangar at 0715 hours, the sources said and would have reached there within half an hour.

The entire area was cordoned off and traffic from all north Kashmir towns and villages stopped. The bomb disposal squad was immediately summoned, who defused the IED without causing any damage. A police spokesman confirmed that the IED was planted on the roadside. However, timely action by police averted the major tragedy, he said adding that had it not been defused it would have caused much damage to life and property.

About 50 soldiers were wounded in the same area last year when militants detonated a powerful IED damaging the private bus in which they were travelling from Baramulla to Srinagar.

The cross-border bus service between the divided Kashmir was launched by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on April 7, 2005 after nearly 58 years, following the agreement between India and Pakistan to allow families separated since 1947 to meet each other. There was a ''Fdayeen'' attack a day before the launch of the bus on Tourist Reception Centre (TRC), where the POK bound passengers were staying.

However, they were rescued safely and the ''Fidayeen'' was killed.

Four militant outfits have issued threats to attack the bus a week before the start of the bus service.

The 170-km Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road, also known as the Jhelum Valley road, was closed for traffic on October 27, 1947, when ''Kabailis'' (tribesmen) invaded parts of Jammu and Kashmir which came to be known as PoK.

About 70 people were burnt alive and dozens injured when a series of blasts took place in Samjhauta Express, running between New Delhi and Wagah at village Deewan, Panipat in Haryana on February 18 this year.