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The Kashmir Timeline

The Line of Control

The line that has divided Kashmir for more than seventy years.

The Line of Control photograph

Photo: US Central Intelligence Agency · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

The ceasefire line agreed at the end of the first war in 1949 was renamed the Line of Control by the Simla Agreement of 1972. It runs for roughly 740 kilometres through farmland, forest and high mountain, cutting across valleys, roads and villages, and in places separating families who have not met since 1947. Much of it is fenced and heavily guarded on both sides.

Facts

  • It is a military line, not an international border, and neither country accepts it as a final settlement.
  • A cross-line bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad opened in 2005 and has since been suspended.