Python: How to OCR characters crossed by a horizontal line

Question

I have a batch of images which I would like to scan. Some of them have got a horizontal line crossing the characters that have to be scanned, which would look like this:

Answer 1

Following @Rethunk advice, I did the following:

# Line parameters
minLineLength = 100
maxLineGap = 10
color = 255
size = 1

# Substracts the black line
lines = cv2.HoughLinesP(im_wb,1,np.pi/180,minLineLength,maxLineGap)[0]

# Makes a list of the y's located at position x0 and x1
y0_list = []
y1_list = []
for x0,y0,x1,y1 in lines:
    if x0 == 0:
        y0_list.append(y0)
    if x1 == im_wb.shape[1]:
        y1_list.append(y1)

# Calculates line thickness and its half
thick = max(len(y0_list), len(y1_list))
hthick = int(thick/2)

# Initial and ending point of the full line
x0, x1, y0, y1 = (0, im_wb.shape[1], sum(y0_list)/len(y0_list), sum(y1_list)/len(y1_list))

# Iterates all x's and prints makes a vertical line with the desired thickness 
# when the point is surrounded by white pixels
for x in range(x1):
    y = int(x*(y1-y0)/x1) + y0
    if im_wb[y+hthick+1, x] == 0 and im_wb[y-hthick-1, x] == 0:
        cv2.line(img,(x,y-hthick),(x,y+hthick),colour,size) 

cv2.imshow(clean', img)

So, as the HoughLinesP function returns the initial and final point of horizontal lines, I made a list of the y coordinates of the points that are in the begginning and end of the image and thus I am able to know the full line equation (so if it is inclined is valid as well) and I can iterate all its points. For each point, if it is surrounded by white pixels, I remove it. The outcome is the following:

If you have any better idea please tell!