Srinagar, June 28: In winter this year, Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed and the Tourism Minister Ghulam Hassan Mir were in London to motivate the British government and many other European nations to remove adverse advisories about travelling to Kashmir. The presumption was that ‘normalcy’ has returned to the Valley and ‘acts of violence were aberrations.’ The PDP president Mehbooba Mufti urged McDonald’s—her favourite—to open its outlet here.
Senior officials of the Tourism Department also visited Madrid, London, Paris and Rome and lobbied for the removal of travel advisories.
The visits have so far neither brought McDonalds to Kashmir nor impressed the European nations to change adverse travel advisories. And in many travel advisories issued by Foreign and Commonwealth offices of various European countries, the advice still is: Don’t travel to Kashmir.
Here is the freshest blow and a hole in the normalcy claims of government. The British government on June 25, 2005 issued a travel advisory to its citizens which reads, “We strongly advice against all travel to Jammu and Kashmir (with the exceptions of Ladakh via Manali or air to Leh) due to ongoing militant violence. On May 11, 2005, a large car bomb exploded in central Srinagar. On May 12, a grenade was thrown outside a school on the main market in Srinagar. On June 13, a large truck bomb was detonated in Pulwama, killing at least 13 people and injuring over 100. Further attacks are possible.”
More: greaterkashmir.com
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