CHITRAL, Aug 12: The number of foreign tourists visiting Chitral in this season, after the recent killing of a Spaniard in the Bumburate area here, has fallen to under 100 this year as compared to 5,500 in the last year.

At this prime of the tourism season, the area wears a deserted look, which adds to the miseries of hoteliers, who have already been suffering since Sept 11 New York Trade Centre attacks. The locals, who mostly bank on the tourism for earing, remain unemployed due to fall in the visitors’ number. The hotel business has come to a grinding halt.

“We wait for this tourist season of five months all the year long, but this year our hopes have been razed to the ground owing to the border tension between Pakistan and India and then the situation worsened with the murder of a foreigner,” a gloomy hotel owner in the valley said.

He said the tourism industry employed a good number of local people in the tourist season, but this year they had remained unemployed as the number of visiting foreigners was almost zero.  

In the meanwhile, the Superintendent of Police, Mohammad Saeed, claimed that the police had not been able to arrest the alleged murderers of the Spaniard, Jordy, who had been stabbed to death here last week. A delegation from Nooristan had assured him of their all out support in this regard, he said.

He opined that the Afghan employees of the murdered Spanish must have fled to Nooristan, their home district where they could not escape the clutches of law.

The daughter and wife of Mohammad Din, one of the alleged murderer, had been taken into custody some four days ago for investigation, he added.