Pakistan Views

India has ended its high alert for forces along the Pakistan border and restored some transport links, officials said on Monday, following disruption in the wake of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.

The killing of the Pakistani opposition leader in a suicide attack on Thursday unleashed a wave of violence in Pakistan. India had feared chaos could spill across the border and ordered a “high state of vigil” on Friday.

But with cities in Pakistan beginning to emerge from several days of unrest, India’s border is no longer on “red alert”, a home ministry official said.

The bi-weekly Delhi-Lahore Samjhauta Express train resumed services on Sunday, the railway ministry said. The Thar Express, a weekly service between India’s Rajasthan state and Pakistan’s Sindh province, will run again on Saturday “if the situation improves”, a ministry official said.

Relations between the neighbours, which have been to war three times and nearly fought another conflict in 2002, are always fraught despite a fragile peace process in the past few years.