Are Stone Pelters Now Attacking Tourists In Kashmir?

It was always believed that stone pelters in the Kashmir Valley only attacked the Army personnel stationed there but never touched the tourists. This belief seems shattered now with at least two reports in The Times of India (TOI) claiming a series of attacks on tourists on 1 and 3 April.

A TOI report published on Monday, titled 'Stone-pelters attack tourists in J&K, 4 hurt' triggered outrage as it claimed that a mob of around 100 pelted stones on a vehicle carrying tourists towards Srinagar on Sunday at Awantipora on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway. It said that two women, Sandhya Kumari (25) and Mandana Jaswal (35), both residents of Uttar Pradesh, were hit on the head. Deputy Superintendent of SMHS hospital, Dr Muneer Ahmad, told TOI that the women were discharged after treatment.

Reacting to the report, the J&K police issued a press statement saying that no incident of stone pelting took place near Dal Lake and Awantipora areas on Sunday. However, the statement acknowledged that two tourists were hurt.

"...Two tourists got minor injuries on April 1..There has been nointended or designed attack on any tourist. It was because the vehicles came in the middle of an area where pelting was going on," the statement said.

It is waiting to be seen how J&K police reacts to the fresh report. On Monday, they registered an FIR against TOI’s Srinagar correspondent M Saleem Pandit after at least 10 local travel agencies complained that the report was written with “malicious intention to disrupt the peaceful tourist season”.