Kashmir police look for missing Taiwanese tourist

Wed 29 Mar 2006 9:23 AM ET

SRINAGAR, India, March 29 (Reuters) - Police in Indian Kashmir said on Wednesday they were searching for a Taiwanese tourist missing for a week in the volatile Himalayan region.

Police have also offered a reward in advertisements published on the front pages of newspapers in Kashmir on Wednesday that feature the photograph of the 52-year-old woman, whose name is given as Huang Su-Chin.

"She arrived on March 22, checked into a houseboat and told the houseboat owner she is going to an internet cafe and since then she is missing," Mohammad Rafiq, a police official, said.

Policemen in motorboats patrolled the famous Dal lake, Kashmir's main tourist attraction in the city of Srinagar, as part of their search. The lake is dotted with hand-carved pinewood houseboats popular with tourists.

"Anybody having any knowledge about the tourist may please inform police," the police advertisement said.

A record number of 610,320 tourists, including 18,080 foreigners, visited Kashmir last year, the biggest number since a separatist revolt erupted in the scenic state in 1989.

But most Western countries still caution their nationals against travel to Kashmir.

Six Western tourists were abducted in Kashmir in 1995. One Norwegian was beheaded, an American escaped and the four others are presumed dead.

More than 45,000 people have been killed in the revolt in Jammu and Kashmir, mainly Hindu India's only Muslim-majority state.

---Reuters