Srinagar (India) (AFP)

On the Dal Lake bathing the shores of Srinagar, summer resort of Indian Kashmir, the very typical floating hotels and boats with multicolored decorations are desperately empty: tourists have deserted the area, cordoned off by the Indian authorities.

Renowned for its breathtaking scenery, snow-capped mountains and peaceful lakes, Kashmir is usually crisscrossed by tourists, from India and around the world.

But at the beginning of August, the Himalayan region was literally emptied of its tourists by the Indian authorities, who ordered them to leave "immediately" because of "terrorist threats".

- Hunted tourists -

The announcement prompted the exodus of visitors to this predominantly Muslim territory. A few days later, a curfew and the blocking of communications cut the region of the outside world, before the revocation of its autonomy decided on August 5 by New Delhi.

A very hard blow for the tourism sector that employs 100,000 people and is now deprived of a manna estimated at 500 million dollars a year.

Other activities that benefit from tourism such as handicrafts, horticulture and transport are also struggling.

The representatives of the Indian authorities "went to all the floating hotels, all the hotels and all the streets to force all the tourists to leave Kashmir", declares to AFP Yaqoob, owner of a "shikara", the one of those long traditional boats, decorated with brightly colored patterns, borrowed by tourists for romantic sailing on Lake Dal.

"Even now, they go around hotels to check that everyone is gone," he adds.

More than half a million tourists visited the valley in the first seven months of the year, including 150,000 last month, according to official data.

- Soldiers, barbed wire and controls -

Not to mention the some 340,000 Hindu religious pilgrims who visited the region in July when the terror alert was given.

A few days later, a lead screed closed on the valley. Only 150 foreign tourists have been traveling through Kashmir since 5 August, mainly individuals who had organized their trip well in advance.

The usually busy streets where, three weeks ago, jostling people were going about their business and tourists in exploration, are now surveyed only by the thousands of additional Indian soldiers deployed to provide security. Half a million is already there in normal times.

Barbed rolls and checkpoints now block any traffic.

"This is not at all what we expected," says a couple of Taiwanese, very rare tourists still present in Srinagar. They had planned this trip a year ago.

"Today, few people can do without everyday technology, without internet (...) it's really hard for people, especially tourists," they add. "This whole situation scares us."

- "Switzerland of the East" -

The number of holidaymakers in Indian-controlled Kashmir, estimated at 1.3 million in 2012, dropped to 850,000 in 2018, according to figures from the Indian government.

The so-called "Switzerland of the East" is a difficult destination to promote in the current context.

The economy, employment and development of Kashmir will benefit from their direct control, assured the Indian authorities.

"It's a lie, nobody was going to attack the pilgrims (Hindus)", insists with AFP Basheer, owner of a floating hotel, for whom "they wanted to revoke the autonomy and used this false alarm to terrorism ".

Without the prospect of a way out of the crisis, residents fear that tourists will stay away for a long time.

"When your business is stopped and you are deprived of your basic rights, we can not hope that we remain reasonable," says Sameer Wani, a merchant of handicrafts. For him, "the situation is likely to go wrong soon".

© 2019 AFP