J&K: Tourists spots see visitors return
Tourists were seen strolling in gardens, riding Shikaras and visiting meadows, though in smaller numbers than usual
Two days after the Pahalgam attack, a visitors have started returning to tourist spots.
They could be seen strolling in gardens, riding Shikaras and visiting meadows, though in smaller numbers than usual. There were long lines waiting for rides on Gondola in the ski resort of Gulmarg in north Kashmir, some 50 km from Srinagar, on Thursday.
“After the attack, there obviously was fear, but the way local Kashmiris firmly stood with the tourists made us feel secure. Even the hotels offered free lunches and dinners,” said a woman tourist in the business hub of Lal Chowk.
While many tourists immediately rushed out of the valley after the attack, a number of the visitors confined themselves to their hotels on Wednesday.
“We had confined ourselves to the hotel and had no courage to come out. Everybody fears when it is about one’s life. But the locals here are very good and gave us encouragement. They made us feel better. They are beautiful humans like the place they live in,” said Anita, a tourist from Kolkata.
The security has been enhanced across the valley after the attack particularly at tourist spots with a large presence of security forces. The national highway and important roads have a larger presence of security forces, including army, police and CRPF.
Yet another elderly tourist said : “We are not scared because people are friendly and there is a lot of security.”
There was also a good rush at the resort of Gulmarg in north Kashmir.
Assistant director tourism at Gulmarg Tahir Mohiudin Wani said that the occupancy was not much affected in the resort in the past two days. “The footfall was good today. We had 5,200 Gondola rides on Wednesday and an estimated 5,500 on Thursday. The panic has gone down after the good messaging for tourists across Kashmir,” he said.
He, however, said that the overall impact can be gauged after seeing the number of future packages.
“These tourists may be already here. We need to see how many new packages come,” he said.
The attack in Pahalgam had set off a scramble among an estimated 2,00,000 tourists in Jammu & Kashmir to exit the Union Territory with the state government opening the Srinagar-Jammu national highway partially on Wednesday to help tourists return home while an additional seven flights were operated from the Srinagar airport on Wednesday.
An airport official in Srinagar said that the panic has subsided, though they have operated some additional flights on Thursday as well. “Majority of the passengers have gone. We have taken some 5-6 additional flights today as well. There is no panic like yesterday,” he said.
