On July 21 this year, Amichai Steinmetz checked out of the guesthouse in Kullu, Himachal Pradesh, where he had been staying. Amichai, who holds both US and Israeli passports, and his Israeli friend were to go trekking from Khirganga, a hamlet in Parvati valley of Kullu, to the forests of Bunbuni. According to Amichai’s friend, they separated soon after they began, agreeing to reach Bunbuni from different routes, and planned to meet again in Khirganga the same evening. Amichai never returned. His friend says he didn’t meet him at Bunbuni either.

On Monday, August 17, a US Embassy team arrived from New Delhi to meet K.K. Indoria, Superintendent of Police, Kullu. The team, which included an officer of the diplomatic security service of the US Department of State, had come to inquire about the Amichai case.

Twenty-four-year-old Amichai is the 19th foreign tourist to have gone missing in Kullu (mostly from Parvati valley) since 1992. That’s an unsettling statistic for a tourist haven that is called the ‘Valley of Gods’, whose valleys and ridges offer a favourite setting for trekkers and tourists. Apart from the list of missing foreigners, official government records say 57 foreigners have died in the region between 1998 and 2009. Most of these deaths are attributed to accidents or drug overdose. But there have been murders too. Like that of Martin Young, a British national who died in a murderous assault in 2000. Similarly, Alessandra Verdi’s death in 2001 was described as murder. The Italian tourist’s body was recovered from the Parvati river bank.

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