Key Kashmir bus service resumes

The bus is a part of the peace process between India and Pakistan

A bus service connecting Indian and Pakistani-administered Kashmir has resumed a week after it was stopped due to violence in the region.

The Srinagar-Muzaffarabad service was stopped after local fruit growers tried to march to the Line of Control, the unofficial border dividing the region.

Meanwhile there have been clashes between police and protesters in Jammu and the Kashmir valley, officials say.

Both areas have been tense because of a row over the sighting of a shrine.

Hindu demonstrators in Jammu are angry over the state government's reversal of a decision to grant a small piece of land to a trust running a Hindu shrine.

The original decision provoked anger in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley where the land was located.

More recently there have been protests in the valley to demand either independence from India or union with Pakistan.

In clashes in Jammu on Thursday, police used batons to disperse hundreds of protesters attempting to set fire to government buildings.

More than 15 people were injured in clashes with security forces, police say.

A curfew is in place throughout Jammu after clashes earlier in the week between protesters and police.

Hindu protesters there have agreed to hold talks with the authorities to defuse the land row.

Small scale protests also took place in the predominantly Muslim Kashmir valley on Thursday in which hundreds of people demanded independence form India.

Officials say the re-opening of the bus route provide grounds for optimism amid several weeks of violence which has hit Kashmir.

India and Pakistan opened the service in 2005 as part of the peace process.

The service brought together families separated since independence in 1947 and the partition of Kashmir.

A total of 100 people left in four buses from Srinagar for Muzaffarabad on Thursday.

Among them 68 were residents of Pakistani-administered Kashmir who returned home after a visit to the valley.

The remaining 32 were residents of Indian-administered Kashmir.