Almost lost, the old link

Rakesh Kumar 

The first ever train that chugged into Jammu and Kashmir before Partition ran on the railway line connecting Sialkot, now in Pakistan, and Jammu. Discontinued for obvious reasons after the birth of Pakistan, the remnants of this historic rail link are vanishing away. Over the years, the rail line has been dismantled by people and houses have come up in the small railway stations on the route.

The length of the track was nearly 30km. The steam engine train would strat from Sialkot, cross through RS Pura station, and reach its destination, the Vikram Chowk station. The Vikram Chowk station has been converted into a workshop of the government-owned Road Transport Corporation, and the platform was demolished to widen the main road. A huge cultural complex has been constructed in a portion of the erstwhile railway station, while some part of it is being used as a store of the Projects Construction Corporation. Shops have come up in the building which once housed the customs office. Other buildings in the workshop have been converted into offices of the transport corporation. Most of the land of the railway station at Miran Sahib was allotted to the refugees who came from Poonch.

Before the Partition, the Jammu-Sialkot link was a busy route, thanks to the flourishing trade and commerce between the two cities. A large number of people from Sialkot would visit Jammu every Sunday for a picnic at the historic Ranbir canal. Similarly, the people of Jammu frequently visited Sialkot, a more modern city with localised industry.

RS Pura was a hub of activities as people would bring their sugar produce to the sugarcane mill. The neighbourhood established near the erstwhile RS Pura station is still called “Patri”. People have encroached on the railway line and the adjacent land. Mostly, the refugees hailing from the erstwhile Poonch state are now residing on the railway line. The railway quarters which were constructed for the railway employees at the RS Pura Railway station, too, have been encroached on by the locals. There were plans to declare RS Pura station a heritage site but it continues to be just a plan at the moment.

Suchetgarh, another station on the route, is about 11 kilometres from Sialkot. The Octroi Border Outpost in Suchetgarh served as the check point for the people coming from Lahore and other areas of undivided Punjab. The visitors to Suchetgarh can visit the historic Raghunath temple at the border, adorned with exotic paintings. The ancient Hanuman temple in the vicinity of Suchetgarh has an old brick well. A shrine dedicated to peer baba also attracts visitors.