Officials said a Pakistani man and woman returning home crossed the Line of Control (LoC) while five men and two women from Indian Kashmir were also allowed to cross from the Indian to the Pakistani zone of the Himalayan region.

"We escorted the nine to the border after we were told that Pakistan had agreed to allow members of divided families to cross the LOC and meet relatives," said Indian army Colonel Sant Kumar in the Poonch district of southern Kashmir.

He said the two Pakistanis had come from Pakistani Kashmir aboard a trans-border bus before the devastating October 8 quake and had been stranded in the Indian zone.

The two countries have observed a ceasefire since November 26, 2003, along the LoC, a move that helped pave the way for the start of peace talks in January 2004.

The truce has spared villagers on both sides from random shelling and made it easier to open crossing points for earthquake relief.

Civilians have also begin crossing on foot for the first time in 60 years to check on the safety of relatives on the other side after the quake, which killed more than 73,000 people in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir and 1,300 in Indian Kashmir.

"The last two years have been the most peaceful ones in our lives," said 35-year-old shopkeeper Anwar Sidiq. "We used to live under constant fear of incoming shells from there," he said, pointing to the Pakistan zone.

"But it has stopped. We have no words to thank the two countries."

Two dozen Indian Kashmiris made history on Saturday when they walked over a 175-feet bridge from Tithwal to the Pakistani village of Chilyana to look for their missing relatives and mourn the dead.

The villages, on either side of the Kishen Ganga river that marks the ceasefire line, were among the worst hit by artillery duels before the truce.

"We were living in hell before the ceasefire. Now it is calm, except that it will take us some time to rebuild our homes destroyed by the quake," said Sidiq's mother Asmat Begum, 45.

The family's home was destroyed in the quake and they now live in a tent.

The nuclear-armed rivals have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir. They are now engaged in a slow-moving peace process, with the first fruit the resumption of a bus service connecting the two zones of Kashmir in April.

Tithwal is now a symbol of the peace effort, with regular meetings between Indian and Pakistani army and civilian officials who stop to photograph each other.

"This border is melting. It is great. Brother is able to see his brother," said Imtiaz Ahmed, a porter who has been carting relief goods from the Indian side to the Pakistani zone.

Families on both sides of the ceasefire line have relatives only a few miles away across the river.

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