India and Pakistan, arch rivals and nuclear neighbours with a history of wars and conflict, are engaged in an arms race.

In 1947, the British colonial rulers drew a line of partition, dividing the Indian subcontinent into Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. What followed was one of the largest – and, perhaps, most violent – migrations in human history. Seventy years on, the two nations remain bitter foes. But now they have nuclear arms.

The tension between India and Pakistan has escalated sharply once again after a suicide bomber blew himself up near an Indian paramilitary convoy in India-administered Kashmir on February 14, killing at least 40 soldiers. The Muslim-majority Kashmir region, a former princely state, has been in dispute since the partition of India in 1947. Its control is split between the two nations, but each claims the region in full.

Pakistan and India in numbers

Comparing India and Pakistan’s miltiaries

INTERACTIVE: India-Pakistan Face to Face – February 27 2019 [Al Jazeera]

The arms race between the South Asian countries