Modi flags off rail link featuring world’s highest arch bridge in India-administered Kashmir

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday inaugurated a landmark railway project in Indian-administered Kashmir, featuring the world’s highest railway arch bridge, in a strategic move to connect the restive Himalayan region with the Indian heartland.

The crown jewel of the $5 billion Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla railway line is the Chenab Rail Bridge—a 1,315-metre (4,314-foot) long steel-and-concrete marvel that soars 359 metres (1,178 feet) above the Chenab River to claim the world record for the tallest railway arch bridge.

While several road and pipeline bridges are higher, Guinness World Records has confirmed that Chenab Rail Bridge trumps the previous highest railway arch bridge, the Najiehe bridge in China.

“In addition to being an extraordinary feat of architecture, the Chenab Rail Bridge will improve connectivity,” Modi posted on social media ahead of his first visit to Kashmir since last month's deadly flare-up with Pakistan. The Hindu nationalist leader later walked across the arch, waving the Indian flag to formally inaugurate the bridge for rail traffic.

The 272-kilometre (169-mile) rail line—dubbed by Indian Railways as one of the world’s most challenging—begins in the garrison town of Udhampur in the Hindu-majority Jammu region and ends in Baramulla, near the Line of Control that separates Indian and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. It winds through 36 tunnels and crosses 943 bridges, navigating some of the region’s most treacherous mountainous terrain.

Modi’s visit comes just weeks after a deadly attack in India-administered Kashmir on April 22 killed 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists. New Delhi blamed the assault on Pakistan-based groups, while Islamabad denied involvement.

The attack led to the worst military confrontation between the two nuclear-armed rivals since the 1999 Kargil War, with missile, drone, and artillery exchanges killing more than 70 people before a ceasefire was reached on May 10.

The railway is expected to halve travel time between the Hindu pilgrimage town of Katra and Srinagar, the largest city in Muslim-majority Kashmir, from six hours to about three. Previously, access to the region was limited to air routes and winding mountain roads prone to landslides and closures during the harsh winters.

Analysts see the infrastructure as both a development milestone and a strategic asset. The railway will also facilitate quicker troop and equipment movement to a region where India has long maintained a heavy military presence to quell a separatist insurgency that began in 1989.

India claims the entire Kashmir region but administers only part of it. Pakistan, which also lays claim to Kashmir, supports calls for a UN-backed plebiscite.

Rebel groups in India-administered Kashmir have waged a 35-year-long insurgency demanding independence for the territory or its merger with Pakistan. Tens of thousands of civilians, militants, and soldiers have died in the decades-long conflict.

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Source: TRT