Pakistan on Thursday announced that the operation of the Samjhauta Express will be suspended temporarily till the security situation between India and Pakistan improves.
“The operation of Samjhuta Express has been suspended today, in view of the prevailing tensions between Pakistan and India,” Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “Samjhuta Express will resume its operations as soon as the security situation improves between India and Pakistan.”
The Samjhauta Express was started on July 22, 1976, under the Shimla Agreement, which settled the 1971 war between India and Pakistan. It has six sleeper coaches and an AC 3-tier coach. Its terminals are in Lahore and Delhi. It leaves from India on Wednesdays and Sundays. The train departs on Mondays and Thursdays from Lahore.
Tensions between India and Pakistan have escalated since February 14, when 40 CRPF personnel were killed in a suicide terror attack by Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad.
India and Pakistan on Wednesday claimed that they had shot down each others’ fighter jets, a day after the Indian Air Force had struck a Jaish terror camp in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. India said Pakistan had attempted to target military installations in Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday and confirmed a pilot of its Air Force was missing in action after the operation.
Pakistan claimed that its jets had struck across the Line of Control from “Pakistani airspace”, and that it had shot down two Indian jets. The action was not targeted at military installations or civilians, Islamabad claimed.
Also read:
- ‘Powerless Imran’: How front pages reported India-Pakistan air strikes
- Five questions Pakistan needs to answer after the air strikes (and four that India still hasn’t)
- ‘Don’t politicise this’: How people from across India reacted to the IAF strike on Pakistan
- BJP and Modi stick to political schedule, despite war fears and a captured Indian pilot
- The Daily Fix: Revenge is not a strategic objective – India and Pakistan must reduce tensions
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