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India Cancels Trains to Pakistan after Bhutto Assassination

India has suspended two train services to Pakistan following violence in the wake of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Two trains were "cancelled on security considerations with immediate effect until further notice", the railways ministry said in a statement late yesterday.

The Samjhauta (Friendship) Express runs between New Delhi and the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.

The Thar Express – named after a desert – connects India’s Jodhpur city to the Pakistani town of Khokrapar and was reopened in 2006 after a gap of four decades to improve relations between the people of the rival nations.

In February, 68 people, mostly Pakistani holidaymakers, were killed in a bomb blast on the Samjhauta Express in north India.

The blast was blamed on Islamic terrorists seeking to derail a slow-moving peace dialogue between India and Pakistan.

Ms Bhutto died on Thursday after a suicide attack targeting her vehicle at a campaign rally in the northern Pakistani city of Rawalpindi. Early reports said she had been shot before a bomb exploded nearby.

Her death triggered a wave of violence throughout Pakistan by angry and grief-stricken supporters which has left at least 33 people dead.

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