GAYA, July 8, 2013: With the Mahabodhi temple remaining out of bounds for the tourists/pilgrims for the whole day on Sunday, panic and chaos marred life in the temple city. Alex, a visiting tourist from Britain, desperately and unsuccessfully looking for some cybercafe to mail his well-being to the family back home, told TOI on Sunday afternoon that he felt 'shattered' by the blasts and wanted to get back home as early as possible. Three other companions of Alex, including two women, nodded in agreement.

Whereas the visitors felt panicky and most of them remained confined to their hotel rooms, the absence of a contingency plan to meet such a situation was all too obvious, with things going virtually topsy-turvy.

Earlier in the day, CM Nitish Kumar said that the shrine will be opened to the devotees once the NIA team conducted the preliminary job of evidence gathering, so essential for proper investigation and identification of the culprits. But the shrine opening got delayed due to the non-arrival of the NIA team at its scheduled time in the afternoon.

No less worried are the hoteliers and other small businessmen earning their bread through tourism in the enlightenment city. According to Bodh Gaya Hoteliers Association president Jai Singh, the tourists being very sensitive about their safety, the blasts have delivered a body blow to the tourism industry and it will take a long time to recover from the blow. More reprehensible was the fact that politicking was being done on the sensitive issue whereas the need of the hour was to sit together and work out a joint strategy to prevent such events in the future, said Singh.

It was not the job of the police and civil officials alone to maintain peace in Bodh Gaya for the proper growth of the tourism industry and all the stakeholders and members of the civil society should maintain vigil and prevent the recurrence of such incidents, said Jai Singh.

Asked about the impact of the blast on the tourism business, a Bodh Gaya-based tour operator said that today being Sunday, it was not clear as to how many tourists groups have cancelled their scheduled visit to Bodh Gaya. Reports however say that a Canadian and a Sri Lankan group have cancelled their Bodh Gaya programme in the wake of the serial blasts.

Source: The Times of India, DT. July 8, 2013.