Pahalgam: What began as a fun outing for tourists at Baisaran, a scenic meadow surrounded by dense forests in south Kashmir’s Pahalgam, quickly turned into a massacre as terrorists opened fire. Kanpur resident Shubham Dwivedi, 28, and his wife were among the tourists present.
Shubham’s cousin said, “Bhaiya and bhabhi were eating Maggi, when two people in uniform came to them, and asked are you Muslim, if yes, then recite the Kalma.” When they did not give a satisfactory answer, the gunmen shot Shubham, his cousin recounted. “They shot bhaiya in the head, and then pointed the gun at bhabhi and said ‘tell your government what we have done’.”
Shubham had been married for just two months. His father, Sanjay Dwivedi, a cement businessman, said his son was on a trip to Jammu and Kashmir and was scheduled to return on Wednesday. Dwivedi related the account his daughter-in-law gave him of the attack: “When the terrorists killed Shubham, his wife said that kill me along with him.”
Another victim, Santosh Jagdale, a businessman from Pune, was among the 26 people shot and killed in Baisaran meadow. His daughter, Asavari Jagdale, described how the terrorists specifically targeted male tourists after demanding they identify their religion. The militants came to their tent and asked her father to come out, she said. “They said ‘Chaudhari tu bahar aa ja’.”
“They then asked my father to recite an Islamic verse (probably the Kalma). When he failed to do so, they pumped three bullets into him, one on the head, one behind the ear and another in the back,” she said. “My uncle was next to me. The terrorists fired four to five bullets into him. They shot several other males who were at the spot.
According to reports, locals and security forces later evacuated them from the scene. Waheed, a tour guide who arrived at the scene after the shooting, told AFP that he helped transport some of the wounded away on horseback. He described seeing several men lying dead.