Tourists are returning to Kashmir’s resorts a year after a militant attack killed 26 people, though visitor numbers remain far below pre-crisis levels.
SRINAGAR: Hoteliers are cautiously welcoming a trickle of visitors back to the once-booming resort towns of Indian-administered Kashmir, one year after a deadly militant attack that killed 26 holidaymakers.
The disputed Muslim-majority region, claimed in full by both India and Pakistan, had previously attracted millions of Indian tourists to its famed wooden houseboats on Dal Lake in Srinagar.
Dozens of tourist sites across the Himalayan territory closed for security reasons following the April 22, 2025 attack, one of the deadliest on civilians in decades in Indian-run Kashmir, which killed mainly Hindu men.
Hotel owner Younis Khandey, who runs a 10-room guesthouse in the resort town of Pahalgam near the attack site, said his business used to be full for months on end before the incident.
India blamed Pakistan for backing the gunmen, a charge Islamabad rejected, while a shadowy group called The Resistance Front initially claimed responsibility before retracting its claim.
Anger between the nuclear-armed neighbours erupted into a four-day conflict two weeks later, with both sides deploying drones, missiles and fighter jets in clashes that killed at least 70 people.
The small mountain meadow of Baisaran, where gunmen stormed from pine forests to fire on crowds, remains closed to the public a year after the attack.
Travel agent Tanvir Ahmed reported that business is still down about 60% even after many tourist spots were reopened, though he noted arrivals are slowly picking up again.
Before the attack, Kashmir welcomed hundreds of thousands of Hindu pilgrims visiting sacred shrines alongside a record 23 million tourists in 2024, including 65,000 foreign visitors.
Syed Qamar Sajjad, director of the region’s tourism department, confirmed the tourism sector is not yet back on track, with official statistics for 2025 not released in the wake of the attack.
India maintains at least 500,000 soldiers permanently deployed in Kashmir, where rebel groups opposed to Indian rule have waged an insurgency since 1989 in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands.
