New Delhi:
Sunita Jaiswal and her family were at the starting point of the Baisaran meadow hike, discussing prices of hiring horses to carry them to the picturesque tourist point, when the atmosphere turned chaotic and they were informed that firing broke out.
“We just knew we had to leave from there as soon as possible,” she told NDTV, after reaching New Delhi aboard a special relief train that ferried hundreds of tourists stranded in Jammu and Kashmir from Jammu Tawi railway station.
For Aditya, who was also lucky to be at the starting point of the Baisaran hike when the attackers opened fire at the other end of the trail in Pahalgam, the journey till Jammu Tawi was fraught with trouble. While he first took the news of firing lightly, he soon saw people running, bleeding from their arms and legs.
“Within five minutes, at least 100 tempo travellers were filled with people and had left. We first came to Srinagar and from there started out journey to Jammu,” said Aditya.
Along the 330-kilometre-long Mughal Road, which connects Srinagar and Jammu and was recently opened after the floods in Ramban, Aditya and the group he was travelling with was stopped at the last checkpoint. “We spent the night in parked car, woke up early the next day, and reached Jammu at 8 am to board the relief train,” he said. He remembers an environment of fear even as CRPF and other security forces patrolled the route amid a curfew.
Swapnil, concerned about his family’s safety, cut short his trip that was to end on April 25 and returned to New Delhi. “The situation was normal in Srinagar and locals were offering immense support. The security was heightened,” he recalled.
Twenty-six people were killed after attackers opened fire at a meadow in Pahalgam on Tuesday. They allegedly asked victims about their religion and asked them to recite the Islamic verse Kalima before shooting them. Bodies of those killed in the attack have started reaching their hometowns, with some being cremated so far.
In the aftermath of the attack, India downgraded diplomatic ties with it and announced a raft of measures, including expulsion of Pakistani military attaches, suspension of the Indus Water Treaty of 1960 and immediate shutting down of the Attari land-transit post.