Greece, Aug 24 (IANS) The Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir hosted the third G20 Tourism Working Group meeting in May, and its tourism reached 2.36 crore visits in 2024, with 7.85 crore visitors between 2023 and 2025, while Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) offers no comparable numbers, because Islamabad has ensured none can be collected, a report said.
PoJK remained sealed off, neglected and largely inaccessible, with little reliable information emerging from the region, a report has stated.
The contrasting trajectories were highlighted by the maiden visit of United States Ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, to Jammu and Kashmir on August 19. During the visit, Gor said that the US will reconsider travel advisories to the Union Territory and described Jammu and Kashmir as “an important part of India”.
On the other hand, in PoJK, residents spent the same week under a communications blockade in place since June 5, amid reports of scores of civilians killed by Pakistani security forces, a ban on the Joint Action Awami Committee (JAAC), and “ sham” legislative assembly elections held under heavy paramilitary deployment in the occupied territory, according to a report in Athens-based ‘Directus’.
“Foreign governments spent three decades wrongly auditing India’s defensive actions in Jammu and Kashmir and are now finally realising that the problem lies with the Pakistani occupation in PoJK. The course correction has come late, but it has finally begun,” it mentioned.
The report noted that terrorist-initiated incidents in the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir declined sharply from 228 in 2018 to 12 in 2025. By the first week of August 2026, it said, 12 incidents had been recorded, resulting in two civilian deaths and two security-force casualties in attacks linked to Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism.
Yet, the decline does not signal the end of the terror threat. The April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack carried out by a Pakistan-backed terrorist group, which killed 26 people, underscored the continuing danger, while violence has increasingly shifted to the Pir Panjal and Chenab belts of Jammu division, where difficult terrain facilitates small-scale ambushes by Pakistan-based terror groups, ‘Directus’ highlighted.
Highlighting the changing landscape in Jammu and Kashmir, the report said, “Still, the winds of change are visible in the region, and international engagement has also grown substantially in recent years. Srinagar hosted the third G20 Tourism Working Group meeting in May 2023, the first major multilateral event in the Valley since 2019, drawing around 60 delegates from member and invitee states. Tourism reached 2.36 crore visits in 2024 before falling to 1.78 crore in 2025 after the Pahalgam incident.”
“The region drew 7.85 crore visitors between 2023 and 2025, compared with 4.76 crore between 2016 and 2018. Under the New Central Sector Scheme, 918 industrial units have registered proposals worth INR 12,665 crore, alongside three foreign investment proposals worth INR 500 crore in Jammu and Kashmir. Additionally, the International Film Festival of Jammu and Kashmir is scheduled for September,” it added, noting the growing development in the region.
–IANS
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