Pakistan-India tensions hit tourism in AJK valley

NEELUM VALLEY: Hotels are empty and roads deserted at the start of what is normally peak tourist season amidst the towering peaks and lush valleys of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, as the threat of attack from India looms.

High season in the cooler climes of the Neelum Valley, the tourist centre of AJK, begins in May as temperatures around the rest of the country rise.

“It´s been a really bad start,” said Muhammad Awais, a 22-year-old photographer at a popular picnic spot.

Tourism is the Neelum Valley´s lifeline, drawing over 300,000 visitors each year from all over Pakistan, according to the district administration.

Much of the local population depends on roughly 350 guesthouses, which employ thousands of families.

“Our livelihoods depend on tourism, and without it, we suffer,” Awais told AFP.

“The way things are unfolding is very slow, and it´s affecting our work badly.”

This week security personnel at check points barred tourists from entering the valley, allowing only local residents through the checkpoint. Tourists were instead told to return the main town of Muzaffarabad. “It´s extremely disappointing that the government did not warn us or advise against visiting,” said Saleem Uddin Siddique, who travelled from Islamabad with his family. The two South Asian nations have exchanged gunfire for nine consecutive nights along the militarised Line of Control. On India´s heavily fortified border, residents of farming villages along the Chenab river have sent families back from the frontier. There has been an exodus of tourists on the Indian side of the border too since the attack Pahalagam. The AJK government has ordered religious schools to close and urged residents to stockpile food.

However, some tourists continued to arrive undeterred. “We don´t think the threat of possible war is serious,” said Mudasar Maqsood, a 39-year-old factory worker from Kasur, over 630 kilometres away, who was blocked along with his friends from entering the valley. “We should not disrupt our routine life,” he added. Raja Iftikhar Khan, the president of private tourism association, said the situation could become “extremely dire”. “This disruption has been devastating for all those tied to tourism,” he said “We don´t want war -- no sensible businessperson ever does”.