Famous hill resorts in Jammu wear deserted look after Pahalgam terror attack

PATNITOP(Jammu and Kashmir): The killing of tourists in the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22 in Jammu and Kashmir has hurt the tourism business in Patnitop, Nathatop and Sanasar, and these famous hill resorts have been presenting a deserted look nowadays.

According to a hotel Manager, Rajesh Kumar soon after the incident, all the guests in the hotel immediately returned to their homes and all their future bookings were cancelled.

All the people dependent on the tourism industry here are seen sitting idle and have complained of suffering losses.

The hoteliers appealed to people that since there is an Army unit and a Police Post in Patnitop so there is no need to fear.

This area has always been safe and there has never been such an incident in past.

Hotel Manager Jagdev Singh told ANI, “Our work has come to zero (in the aftermath of the terror attack). The whole area wears a deserted look. Almost 90 per cent of all the hotel bookings have been cancelled. Hotel rooms are vacant and all the employees are sitting idle”.

Taxi Union Leader, Sukhdev Singh, told ANI that all the tourists in Patnitop have “run away” due to the incident. “All the hotels have been vacated. It is becoming hard to pay instalments to our drivers as our vehicles have not run for the last three to four days”.

“All the tourists have run away from here. It is getting hard to earn our livelihood…Patinitop is safe for tourists. There is nothing like that,” he added.
Rajesh Thakur said, “..Patnitop is wearing a deserted look. Unfortunately, there are no words to condemn what happened in Pahalgam”.

He also said that Patnitop is a “famous” hill station of Jammu and appealed to the tourists, “Here, there is nothing like that (security concerns). (Bookings of) 150 rooms have been cancelled after the incident”.

There is a police picket in Patnitop and a unit of the Army in the main chowk of Patnitop, he said.

He further said that hotel occupancy rates would reach 80 per cent in April. “But all the bookings have been cancelled. Speaking now, all the hotels are vacant,” he expressed concern over the low footfall in the aftermath of the incident. (ANI)