NEW DELHI – On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially opened a groundbreaking railway project designed to link the Kashmir Valley with the expansive plains of India via train for the first time.
Termed a significant feat by Indian Railways, the government’s rail authority, this 272-kilometer (169-mile) route is hailed as one of the world’s most challenging. It commences in Udhampur, a military base in the Jammu region, passing through Srinagar, the key city in the Indian-administered Kashmir area. The track concludes in Baramulla, a township near the heavily fortified Line of Control that delineates India and Pakistan’s segments of the Himalayan region.
The line travels through 36 tunnels and over 943 bridges. The Indian government pegged the total project cost at around $5 billion.
On Friday, Modi visited the region under Indian control for the first time since a military altercation with Pakistan had nearly escalated into another major conflict between the nuclear-capable adversaries last month, a dispute that involved the exchange of missile and drone strikes.
The conflict began with a gun massacre in late April that left 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, dead in Indian-controlled Kashmir. India blamed Pakistan for supporting the attackers, a charge Islamabad denied.
The railway project is considered crucial to boosting tourism and bringing development to a region that has been marred by militancy and protests over the years. The line is expected to ease the movement of Indian troops and the public to the disputed region, which is currently connected by flights and mountain roads that are prone to landslides.
India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, a charge Islamabad denies. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.
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