Pakistan suspends last train to India, border families worry

ISLAMABAD/JAISALMER: Pakistan railway minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed said on Friday that the country’s second and last surviving train service to India, and the oldest, the Thar Express, would be suspended by Friday midnight, throwing Indian families on the desert border in Rajasthan into a panic about the return of loved ones visiting Pakistan for Eid-ul-Zuha.
The announcement, in response to India revoking Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and bifurcating the state into two Union Territories, came a day after Pakistan suspended the operation of the Samjhauta Express.
Ahmed told reporters in Islamabad the last run of the Thar Express, from Khokhrapar in Pakistan’s Tharparkar district to India’s Munabao village in the Rajasthan desert, would be late Friday night. “As long as I am railway minister, Samjhauta Express and Thar Express will not operate. That’s it,” he declared.
However, railway officials in Jodhpur said the train would run as usual and tickets were being booked. Jodhpur rail division spokesperson Gopal Sharma said there was no official information about the cancellation of the train. He said so far 143 tickets to Pakistan had been booked. Of these, he said, 107 had been booked by Indians and 36 by Pakistanis.
But Nihal Khan of Mangaliavas village, in Sam area of Jaisalmer district, was worried as the Pakistani visas of his daughter, Sahira Khatun, his son-in-law and his brother were valid only till Eid. Similarly, Resham Khan was worried about how his father Ibrahim Khan, the sarpanch of Ghotaru in India, would return from Pakistan. The problem here, too, was the validity of the visa. Resham said he had many other many relatives who had gone to Pakistan and their kin here were anxious.
Hanif Khan of Sam area suffered the same anxieties — many relatives of his uncle and mother had travelled to Pakistan and another relative had gone to that country to bring home his wife.
In Islamabad, the minister said the 133 km of new track built for the Thar Express would now be used for the Thar coal project.
Following Thursday’s suspension of the Samjhauta Express, the Pakistan railway minister was criticised by his own cabinet colleague who said Ahmed didn’t have the authority to make such a decision, leading to Ahmed referring to the critical minister as “Tarzan”.
“The foreign ministry and the National Security Council should’ve made the announcement. The topic of Samjhauta Express wasn’t even discussed in the cabinet meeting. The brunt of the decision will be faced by the Sikhs,” Pakistan science minister Fawad Chaudhry had said.
Ahmed clarified on Friday: “I am not stupid. I announced that the train is being discontinued after the approval of PM Imran Khan and his principal secretary. He (Fawad Chaudhry) should focus on his ministry. He was just trying to become Tarzan, but I will speak to Prime Minister Imran Khan about this.”
He told reporters he would visit “Azad Jammu and Kashmir” after Eid-ul-Zuha, adding, “We don’t want war but whoever doesn’t stand strong with the Kashmiris is the most traitorous of traitors.”
The full run of the train is from Karachi to Jodhpur via Zero Point railway station, near Khokhrapar, where passengers clear customs before crossing into India and arriving at Munabao. They then switch to the Thar Link Express to Jodhpur. The train has run every Friday ever since services were resumed on February 18, 2006 after remaining suspended for 41 years due to damage inflicted in the India-Pakistan war of 1965.