In Zojila, light at the end of tunnel

On June 9, when the 13.14-kilometre-long Zojila Tunnel witnessed a construction breakthrough, Muhammad Shafi Sagar, 50, and Ashiq Wazir, 30, unknown to each other, experienced both relief and sadness. Relief that they and their friends will, in a couple of years, be able to travel between Ladakh’s Drass district and the Kashmir Valley relatively free of the fear of dangerous terrain. Sadness, because they had both lost loved ones in the treacherous Zojila Pass. The Zojila Tunnel by-passes the pass that runs across 30 km, cutting through the vertical, craggy Himalayan range in Drass. In the district’s Pandrass village, the…