Launched with national pride, the new rail link promises an economic uplift and strategic integration for the long-isolated region On June 25, 60-year-old Muhammad Fakhrudin Bhat fulfilled a dream nearly four decades in the making: his first-ever train journey out of the Kashmir Valley to India’s capital, New Delhi. As he boarded the newly inaugurated Katra-Srinagar Vande Bharat Express – launched with great fanfare by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier that month – Bhat looked on in