New Delhi:
A Kerala woman, her father and twin sons were enjoying a horse ride in the scenic Baisaran meadow on the second day of their Jammu and Kashmir trip, when gunshots rang through the Valley. People ran towards possible safe locations and screams echoed as a horrific terror attack unfolded in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam.
Amid the chaos, Arathi and her family jumped off the horses and crawled through a fence, relieved to be in a safe spot. She looked sideways to see an armed man approaching groups of people, asking them a question and then shooting at them. As the Kochi native looked for another spot where they could hide from the terrorists, her father N Ramachandram remained calm and asked her to stay put. “The man came towards us and said ‘Kalima’ (an Islamic verse). When we said we didn’t understand what he was saying, he shot my father,” she told reporters.
As she hugged her father’s bleeding and lifeless body, the man kept the gun pointed at Arathi. The attacker only walked away when her sons screamed.
The woman and her sons then crawled through the forest to reach a resort, where the Indian Army secured them.
Arathi later found out that her father was among the 26 civilians gunned during the attack claimed by The Resistance Front (TRF), a proxy of the banned Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
At this time, what stood out for her was the assistance given to her by two Kashmiri taxi drivers – Musafir and Samir. “They accompanied when I went to the mortuary and waited with me throughout. At the airport, I told them I now have two brothers in Kashmir,” she said.
N Ramachandran was cremated with full state honours in Kochi on Friday.
