Sonia Gandhi welcomes with a gift a passenger who arrived from PoK by the Poonch-Rawalkot bus. (PTI)

Chakan Da Bagh, June 20: Freshly painted gates at Chakan Da Bagh on the Line of Control swung open today for the Poonch-Rawalkot bus ? the second one to unite divided Kashmiri families.

Flower petals, garlands and the hugs and tears of relatives ? some of whom they had never seen before ? greeted 44 passengers who arrived from Pakistan Kashmir.

“Mere ko lagta hai ki main doosri duniya mein aa gaya hoon (It seems like I have stepped into a new world),” said Sadiq, a 12-year-old from Kotli, who came with his parents.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi, here for the launch, described the occasion as “historic” and said: “A second big wall has broken with the opening of this road.”

The first bus service across the LoC was launched between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad in April last year.

If the open gates on Sampark Setu (Bridge of Contact) were the stuff of dreams for the over 25,000 divided families in the region south of Pir Panjal, the nine-foot-high fence on the rest of the LoC was the reality check.

“These are gates of hope and peace,” said an army officer. “The fence is a need of the security of the nation.”

But security and militancy were far from the thoughts of passengers like Rehana, who said: “It is a day that we had been dreaming of for years.” She took a souvenir and a rose from Sonia before boarding the bus along with 29 other Indian passengers. Fifteen Pakistanis also took the bus to return home.

The passengers tripped over each other in excitement as they queued up to board the bus. They were brought here early for security reasons and made to wait for three-and-a-half hours, before the VIPs arrived to see them off.

Taj Mohammad said: “I simply know I am going to meet my cousin across the LoC. We have not seen each other even once, but I know that the scent of blood will help us recognise each other within seconds.”

Some of the passengers carried with them gifts of sugar and tea, which are expensive on the other side, and blankets.

Sonia said the passengers were “carrying our message of love for the people across”. She was accompanied by defence minister Pranab Mukherjee, Union water resources minister Saifuddin Soz, who is a Kashmiri, and chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.

Speaking to the media afterwards, she said: “The government is open-minded on resolving the Kashmir issue. But the dialogue has to be within the Indian Constitution.”

As the bus service resumed, there was relief in the administration.

“It is a great thing to happen. The best part is that there was no incident,” Azad said. The suicide attack at the Tourist Reception Centre, where passengers of the first bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad were lodged, on the eve on the launch would have been on his mind.