SRINAGAR: Rajni Patil waited 16 years to see what poets have described as “paradise on earth”. “It is a dream come true,” gushed the 45-year-old housewife from central India, standing on the banks of Srinagar’s Dal lake in occupied Kashmir.

“After a long wait I am finally in Kashmir.”

The Indian-held state is opening to tourists as fighting subsides between India and Pakistan over the disputed region amid a delicate peace process.

Behind Patil and her husband, on a lake ringed by snow-capped mountains, tourists glide by on small boats known as “shikaras”. Hundreds of hand-carved pinewood houseboats dot the water.

“People in India and abroad have a wrong notion about this piece of heaven that it is not safe. I feel it is safer than Indore,” said Patil, referring to her home city in India.

About 186,670 tourists, mostly from northern India, visited occupied Kashmir in the first five months of this year, compared with 98,613 in the same period last year, tourism officials said.

Kashmir was once a top Asian tourism destination, popular among honeymooners, skiers, trekkers and anglers, and attracting about a million tourists a year until 1989, when the Mujahideen launched a freedom struggle against New Delhi.

Tourism withered. Houseboat owners and hoteliers took to the streets begging during the freedom movement that killed 45,000 people.

“We hope God has pitied us and good days are ahead. If the peace process continues, Kashmir will be flooded (with tourists),” said Ali Mohammad, a houseboat owner in his office near the rubble of Srinagar’s main tourist reception centre.

“My houseboat is booked for the next three months.”

His centre was stormed by guerrillas on April 6, a day before a historic bus service was scheduled to begin between Muzaffarabad and Srinagar.

Violence has eased in occupied Jammu and Kashmir since New Delhi and Islamabad started a peace process more than 18 months ago, but people are still being killed in regular gunbattles, occasional bomb blasts and attacks.

“I hope improving relations between India and Pakistan will boost tourism in Kashmir,” said Ghulam Hassan Mir, Kashmir’s tourism minister.

As tourism slowly revives, authorities have moved more than 800 soldiers out of seven hotels that became security camps near Dal Lake during the fighting. Many more hotels remain occupied by soldiers and other security agencies.

Indian intelligence officials say freedom fighters, angered by the peace process, may resort to more violence. Last week 14 people were killed and at least 100 wounded when a car bomb exploded near a school in a busy town in Pulwama.

Most Western countries still caution citizens against travel to Kashmir, sometimes called the Switzerland of the East for its ice-capped mountain peaks. Five Western tourists disappeared in Kashmir in 1995 while on a trek and are presumed dead.

Since then, authorities refuse to lift a ban on trekking in the region. But anglers have begun hunting for trout in the snow-fed streams.

“I decided several times to visit Kashmir but violence always scared me. Things are far better here than we have heard,” said Sanjeev Mahjan, a 55-year-old doctor.

Mehbooba Mufti, chief of Kashmir’s ruling People’s Democratic Party, is cautiously optimistic peace will hold and the tourists will return.

“Our progress up to this point has also been fraught with numerous odds ... What looked impossible yesterday is beginning to look as near-certainty today,” she said from her heavily guarded house.

“The thaw has just set in,” said the daughter of the held state’s chief minister.—Reuters