Jammu, May 19: A day after a former panchayat official was shot dead by terrorists in South Kashmir’s Shopian and a tourist couple from Rajasthan injured in a separate terror strike in Anantnag, former deputy chief minister of the erstwhile state, Kavinder Gupta, said on Sunday said the attack was aimed at disturbing and hurting tourism in Jammu and Kashmir.
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The senior BJP leader said, “There was a record tourist footfall in Kashmir last year, with the number of visitors estimated at 1,70,00,000. Hence, at a time when tourism is looking up and local businesses and livelihoods are booming, the attack was aimed at bringing back the dark days of terror in the region. It was intended to hurt the tourism prospects at a time when there is prosperity all around in Kashmir. I strongly suspect Pakistan to be behind this attack. However, the nefarious designs of people, who carry out terror hits in exchange for money and at the behest of their handlers (across the border) wouldn’t succeed. Their bid to bring back the reign of terror in the Valley will never succeed.”
“It should be kept in mind in this context that these people (terrorists) no longer enjoy local support as they used to earlier,” the former deputy CM said.
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