SRINAGAR, May 25: A major football tournament returned to occupied Kashmir on Sunday after a gap of three decades, thanks to a drop in militant violence, officials said.

The Santosh Trophy, a popular national event, was declared open in Srinagar on Sunday evening by the region’s chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.

“It is a big day for the people of Kashmir,” said Zamir Ahmad, head of Kashmir’s football association.

Kashmir and the former French colony of Pondicherry, recently renamed Puducherry, played the inaugural match. In all, 31 teams from across India are competing in the 20-day event.

The premier soccer tournament was last held in 1978, almost a decade before freedom fighters launched a sustained campaign to remove Kashmir from New Delhi’s control.

But the violence, which has so far claimed more than 43,000 lives by official count since 1989, has dropped since India and Pakistan began peace talks in January 2004. The number of violence-related deaths has fallen from a daily average of 10 in 2001 to two in 2008 in the region.

Though security was tight for the tournament’s inauguration, former Indian captain Majeed Kakroo, one of many Kashmiris who represented the country at international events, said the competition would “revive football in Kashmir.”—AFP