Following news of the alleged murder of 26-year-old businessman Ketan Agarwal, the fort saw an unusual rise in visitors. Many were visiting not for its heritage or scenery, but to see the gorge where Agarwal was allegedly pushed to his death. Authorities said footfall increased from around 1,000 visitors to nearly 1,500 on holidays, while weekday numbers rose from about 400 to over 600. The fort has since been temporarily closed to allow police to continue their investigation.
The incident has once again raised a broader question: why do people travel to places associated with tragedy?
The phenomenon is known as dark tourism.
The term was introduced by researchers John Lennon and Malcolm Foley in the 1990s to describe travel to sites associated with death, disaster, conflict or suffering. Academic literature in tourism studies also traces related ideas to “thanatourism”, a term used by A.V. Seaton (1996) to describe travel motivated by encounters—direct or symbolic—with death and mortality. While the label is modern, the behaviour it describes is longstanding.
Historical accounts suggest that in some instances during the American Civil War, civilians gathered near battlefields to observe fighting from a distance. Across different periods and regions, sites linked to conflict, death and punishment have attracted public attention, often becoming informal destinations in their own right.
More than curiosity
At first glance, visiting places linked to tragedy may appear unsettling. But academic research suggests the motivations are complex, layered, and often psychological in nature.
A foundational framework in this field comes from Chris Rojek’s (1993) concept of “Black Spots”, which describes sites of public fascination where death or disaster has occurred. Rojek argues that such places attract visitors because they represent “moments of rupture” in collective memory.
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Building on this, Seaton’s thanatourism research (1996) and later work in tourism studies suggests that visiting such sites often serves as a form of meaning-making and mortality awareness, where individuals engage with death in symbolic ways to better understand life and history.
One widely cited psychological explanation is Terror Management Theory (TMT), developed by social psychologists Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon and Tom Pyszczynski (1986). The theory suggests that awareness of death creates existential anxiety, which people manage through cultural worldviews and symbolic systems. Visiting sites associated with death can therefore function as a way of confronting mortality in a structured, socially acceptable environment.
Another relevant framework comes from tourism researcher Philip Stone (2006, 2012), who argues that dark tourism often operates as a form of “thanatological mediation”, where death is encountered indirectly, allowing visitors to process difficult emotions at a safe psychological and physical distance.
In simpler terms, these studies suggest that dark tourism is not driven by a single motive, but by a mix of historical learning, emotional engagement, existential reflection and controlled exposure to fear and mortality.
The same interest is reflected in the popularity of true crime storytelling in books, films, documentaries and podcasts, which continues to attract large audiences globally. In India, crime and thriller content has become a major part of streaming platforms’ offerings. According to Ormax Media, the Action, Crime and Thriller (ACT) category accounts for roughly 43%–47% of new content released across major OTT platforms.
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Some of the world’s most visited sites associated with tragedy are now important places of remembrance.
Visitors travel to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland to learn about and remember the victims of the Holocaust. In Italy, Pompeii preserves the remains of an ancient Roman city buried during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York commemorates the victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks. Robben Island in South Africa, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years, stands as a symbol of the country’s apartheid history. In Cambodia, the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center preserves the memory of victims of the Khmer Rouge regime.
India also has several sites connected to painful historical events.
Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar preserves the memory of the 1919 massacre during British rule. The Cellular Jail in Port Blair documents the imprisonment of Indian freedom fighters during the colonial period. The Bhopal Memorial for the Victims of the Gas Disaster commemorates those affected by the 1984 industrial tragedy, while the Kargil War Memorial in Dras honours soldiers who died in the 1999 conflict.
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