SKIERS seeking the ultimate risky run have a new option this season: skimming the roof of the world, close to one of its most militarised front lines.

Thanks to a thaw in relations between India and Pakistan, the restive Himalayan province of Kashmir is hoping to attract adventurous skiers with the opening this week of the highest gondola skilift in the northern hemisphere.

The 1½-mile (2.5km) lift, which was completed at the weekend at a cost of £1.87 million, links the stunning Kongdoori Valley with the 14,400ft summit of Afarwat high in the Himalayas.

Deep snowdrifts, the high altitude and freezing temperatures were some of the hazards facing the engineers who built the towers and cables just three miles from the line of control that divides the disputed province, where hundreds of thousands of Indian and Pakistani soldiers face each other.

The French contractor building the lift abandoned the project in 1990 after workers were abducted by militants opposed to Indian rule in the mainly Muslim region. Work resumed eight years later as tensions appeared to ease.

The project is part of an attempt to revive the once-thriving tourist industry that has been all but destroyed since the separatist insurgency against India erupted in 1989.

It cut off the flow of more than 700,000 tourists a year to a trickle.

Kashmir hopes to capitalise on the peace talks between the two countries by promoting the area as a world-class winter sports destination.

It is a further boost to relations after a decision last month to start a bus service on April 7 between Muzaffarabad, in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, and Srinagar on the Indian side. There have also been renewed sporting links between the cricket-loving neighbours; Pakistan won a Test match against India in Bangalore yesterday.

Afarwat soars above the village of Gulmarg, an hour’s drive from Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir.

Farooq Ahmed Shah, chief executive of the Gulmarg Development Authority, said that already bookings were being taken for next season. “We’ve got great hopes that we’ll get at least 1,000 foreign skiers next winter. We’ve already had a tremendous response, because there really is nothing in the world to compete with the quality of Gulmarg’s skiing,” he said.

Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, acknowledged tourism’s role in restoring the war-torn economy of the state and ordered Indian security forces to vacate hostels so that more tourists may be accommodated. The promotion of tourism in the state has received support from an unlikely source. Last week al-Badr, a hardline militant group, “welcomed” Indian and foreign tourists — with the caveat that they respect Islamic principles and Kashmiri culture.

Yet the violence is never far away. On Sunday rebels ambushed an Indian border patrol in Rajouri district, southwest of Srinagar, killing two soldiers and leaving nine injured.

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