The Jammu and Kashmir administration will open the Valley for tourists from Thursday, this comes after two months when they were asked to leave the state immediately due to a “terror threat”.
According to News18, Jammu and Kashmir will be open to tourists from Thursday. Governor Satya Pal Malik had on Monday lifted the restriction on entry of tourists after holding a security review meeting. The government had asked the tourists to curtail their stay in the Valley “immediately” soon after it took the step to call off the annual Amarnath Yatra on August 2, citing "intelligence inputs of terror threats”.
Within three days of the move, the Parliament effectively scrapped Article 370 of the Constitution that accorded special status to the state, and divided it into two union territories. The administration had also imposed restrictions on movement, snapped phone and telephone lines, arrested the state’s political class and deployed additional troops to prevent any backlash to the controversial move.
More than a thousand people, including politicians, separatists, activists and lawyers, were detained after the August 5 move of the central government to abrogate the state's special status. The detainees include three former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti. Over 250 people were sent to the jails outside Jammu and Kashmir. Farooq Abdullah was subsequently detained under the stringent Public Safety Act, while other politicians were mostly detained under different sections of the criminal procedure code.
The News18 report further states that More than half a million people visited the valley in the first seven months of this year, according to official data. In addition, some 340,000 religious tourists were also visiting the valley in July before their pilgrimage was called off due to the terror claims. Just 150 foreign travellers visited Kashmir after August 5, the figures showed.
