Trains, named the Maitree (Friendship) Express, travelled in both directions for the first time since the service was suspended after a 1965 war between India and Pakistan, when Bangladesh was part of Pakistan.

The reopening caps years of negotiations on restoring links between the two parts of the Bengal region.

A train carrying 65 passengers rolled from India into Bangladeshi territory through the Darshana border post, about 320 kilometres (198 miles) west of the capital Dhaka, at about 12:25 pm (0625 GMT), an AFP reporter said.

At least 10,000 people braved hot and humid weather to "welcome the passengers with flower petals and bouquets as they arrived," Bangladesh Railways chief commercial manager Abdul Haq said.

Passengers said they were overwhelmed by the event, which coincides with the first day of the Bengali New Year.

"I had a bout of nostalgia since I boarded the train this morning. It is the same track that I and my father used to travel on. The same old villages are here," said Nihar Ranjan Saha, who was travelling to his ancestral village.

"I am spellbound seeing thousands of people coming to greet us. We almost forgot that we're the same people living across the border," Saha said.

The Bengal region was split along religious lines in 1947 when the subcontinent gained independence from British colonial rule.

Residents of both the Indian state of West Bengal and Bangladesh speak Bengali and have close cultural links.

While passenger services have been suspended since 1965, cargo links continued, and in the 1990s a passenger bus service was launched between Dhaka and Kolkata.

The train was greeted by top officials when it later arrived at Dhaka's Cantonment Station at 8:37pm (1437 GMT), a government spokesman said.

Another train, covered with flowers and travelling in the opposite direction from Dhaka, rolled into the eastern Indian city of Kolkata at about the same time Monday. Hundreds cheered the train carrying 370 passengers at the station.

"This is an emotional moment as my father left Kolkata in 1947 and today I have come to find my family roots," said passenger Umer Shahjahan from Bangladesh.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury earlier predicted closer ties with the resumption of the service.

In India, his counterpart Pranab Mukherjee hailed "a historic moment for India and Bangladesh."

One of the passengers on the India-bound train, K.S Zaman, who was visiting relatives in Hawrah near Kolkata where he was born 78 years ago, had made the journey before the service was cut off 43 years ago.

"In early 1965, I vividly remember the rundown train packed with passengers," said Zaman, who boarded the train with his wife, daughter and two grandsons.

Zaman and his family migrated to Bangladesh, then known as East Pakistan, after riots during the partition of British India.

"After the partition, I started visiting my relatives from 1952. But everything changed after the 1965 war. People of Bengal who have been together for thousands of years became the victim of politics," he said.

"This train will bring all of us together again."

Despite the goodwill, security was tight for the event, with some Hindu groups in India opposed to the new link. Police said 87 people were arrested during the day amid protests over the "torture of Hindus" in Muslim Bangladesh.

On Sunday, Indian police found and defused six small home-made bombs near the tracks along the route.

Officials said the new service would run twice a week in each direction.

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