Millions of tourists and pilgrims flock Kashmir in 15 months, shattering myth that travelers have deserted the "ghost territory" and the "police state "

Dispelling the western media narrative, faithfully echoed by a section of the Indian national media that Kashmir as a deserted ghost territory after withdrawal of its semi-autonomous status in August 2019, as many as 15 million tourists and pilgrims visited Jammu and Kashmir, notwithstanding the coronavirus pandemic, in the last 15 months.

According to the most authentic official statistics, a total of 1,51,66,887 tourists have visited Jammu and Kashmir in 15 months from 1 January 2021 to 31 March 2022, notwithstanding the Covid-19 pandemic. It breaks all the records of the corresponding period in the last about 10 years. “The pandemic and terrorism are a reality, now both diminishing, but parallel to it runs the inflow of over million tourists—at an average of 0ne million each month”, said a senior bureaucratic source.

As usual, the Mata Vaishno Devi pilgrims account for more than 90 percent of the visitors who have visited the Union Territory during the last 15 months. Even if all the pilgrim tourists are subtracted from the total footfall, as many as 10.07 lakh domestic and foreign tourists have enjoyed a trip, mostly to the Kashmir valley. Officials insist that more than 30 percent Vaishno Devi pilgrims routinely extend their sojourn from Katra, Jammu, to the valley but they are counted in Jammu only.

“The figure would have been far higher if there had been no restrictions on the limit of the daily visitors to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine due to the pandemic. Besides, the annual Amarnathji shrine pilgrimage was not conducted in the last two years”, said an official who is not authorised to speak to the media.

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