NEW DELHI, April 7 (Xinhuanet) -- Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is set to inaugurate a historic Kashmir bus service in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir, Thursday, a day after a brazen terrorist attack seeking to derail it drew international condemnation, Indo-Asian News Service reported.

    Hundreds of police and paramilitary personnel and soldiers virtually took over Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir, to prevent any recurrence of Wednesday's attack on a tourist complex in the very heart of the city that housed the bus passengers.

    The Indian prime minister is set to fly in an Indian Air Force (IAF) plane along with Sonia Gandhi, chairperson of the country's ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), Indian External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh and Home Minister Shivraj Patil.

    A group of 21 journalists flown in from New Delhi earlier in anIAF plane saw gun-toting security personnel deployed all along thenine-kilometer route from the Srinagar airport to the Sher-e-Kashmir sports stadium where the prime minister will do the ceremonial flagging off at 10.30 a.m.

    Armored personnel carriers slowly cruised through the streets still wet from overnight rain, their heavily armed occupants scanning houses and buildings for possible sneak rebel attacks.

    Some 2,000 people, looking like villagers from nearby areas, gathered at the stadium while two white color buses, chosen for the path-breaking journey, were parked in a forlorn corner. Only one bus will ply Thursday.

    The Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus will link the divided halves of Kashmir for the first time in nearly six decades. It marks a historic milestone in the India-Pakistan relations that have been marked by decades of hostility centering around the divided Kashmir.

    Srinagar wore a seemingly calm exterior but there were few people on the streets. Many security personnel stood alert behind bunkers with their weapons drawn, some placed on neatly piled up sandbags.

    Wednesday evening two terrorists stormed the tourist complex and set it on fire. They then engaged security personnel who were taken aback in gun battles that lasted for almost 40 minutes.

    But 25 of the 29 passengers set to take the bus who were in thecomplex were quickly bundled out, put into a bullet-proof vehicle and driven to a luxury hotel on the banks of the Dal Lake.

    Both the attackers were killed while half a dozen civilians and security personnel were injured. Enditem