Where is Kashmir, the region at the center of the conflict between India and Pakistan? Why is it disputed?

The spiralling conflict in the Kashmir region took a worrying turn on Tuesday as India fired missiles into territory controlled by Pakistan, escalating tensions between the two nuclear powers.

India said that the strike was targeting infrastructure used by militants of the group that massacred tourists last month. Following that heinous attack the Indian government accused Pakistan of backing the militants.

Kashmir is an area in the northwestern Indian subcontinent, claimed by both India and Pakistan. It also shares borders - although the exact boundaries of Kashmir are disputed - with the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, the Tibet Autonomous Region and Afghanistan. However historically the primary conflict is between India and Pakistan.

Why is Kashmir a disputed territory?

Control of the region has been a contentious matter for centuries but the roots of the modern-day situation can be traced back to the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. The entire region had been controlled by the British Raj until being divided into two nations states: India and Pakistan.

That division displaced as many as 20 million people, spawned an enormous refugee crisis and may have led to the deaths of more than a million. It has also created a tinder-box situation in the Kashmir, a region with significant cultural, social and religious ties that now spans the border between India and Pakistan. Both nations claim the territory and conflict has never been far away.

Within the Kashmir region, since 1972 a so-called ‘line of control’ designates the India-controlled and Pakistan-controlled areas. However neither country recognises it as a formal international boundary.

That lack of clarity and a complex web of internal ties has ensured that the conflict has continued to bubble for nearly 80 years. With tensions rising once again, very little has changed.

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