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India sends third consignment of relief for quake-hit Pak

     New Delhi: India on Thursday despatched the third consignment of releif material for quake-ravaged Pakistan as part of its continuous effort to provide aid to its immediate neighbour. India has already offered 25 million dollars to Pakistan for relief and rebuilding areas ravaged by last month's deadly earthquake. Last month's devastating earthquake centred in Pakistani Kashmir killed at least 75,000 people and rendered hundreds and thousands of people homeless. New Delhi has already been supplying relief material to build earthquake-resistant shelters in Pakistan. In this effort both the countries have opened five relief points to make the supply of relief material easy. India and Pakistan had agreed to open the five crossing points as a humanitarian response to the October 8 earthquake. The Governments of both Pakistan and India had earlier been criticised for their hesitancy in opening their border to help deliver aid to communities cut off by landslides in the remote region and to allow villagers to visit relatives on the other side. In this consignment, 11 wagons full of tents and blankets are being sent before the biting cold winter sets in the upper reaches of Pakistani Kashmir. "In this wagon we are sending livestock and tentage around 1,108. We are sending blankets and sleeping bags. We are sending snow tents 80. We are sending fibre quantity fibre 30,000 approximately and about 869 quantity of medicines," said Major General S.P. Sinha, of the Indian Army's Ordnance Branch. India has so far sent more than 100 tonnes of emergency supplies to Pakistan. Both countries claim Kashmir in full but rule it in part. The dispute is at the heart of nearly 60 years of enmity between the nuclear-armed neighbours.