Everything ended in a second: Pahalgam attack victim's wife recounts horror
"In the final moments, if I had been with him, he would definitely have said 'I love you' to me, but everything ended in a second," said Aishanya, the wife of Shubham Dwivedi, a resident of Kanpur and one of the 26 people killed in the deadly Pahalgam terror attack. Sharing her heart-wrenching account of the incident in an exclusive interaction with AajTak, Aishanya said that the couple initially thought the terrorist was approaching them for a game. "With a smile on his face, he asked us if we were Hindus or Muslims, looked into our eyes and asked us to recite a kalma," Aishanya said, recalling how they were in the middle of answering that they were Hindus and Shubham was shot. advertisement"If he was injured or could breathe even barely, he would've said 'I love you'. He loved me a lot," Aishanya further said, adding that the terrorist "checked" Shubham's body after shooting him.
She also said that the gunfire lasted for 45 minutes, but no one came to help. "The terrorists knew that no one would help, and hence, had time to enquire about people's religious identities," Aishanya said. Shubham Dwivedi, a 31-year-old businessman from Kanpur, married Aishanya on February 12 this year. The couple was in Kashmir with their nine family members on a week-long holiday, visiting Sonamarg and Gulmarg before reaching Pahalgam.Aishanya recounted that they sought help from the horse riders, asking them to escort her elderly parents to safety, but were refused. "They said, 'We are not your horsemen' and did not help us," she added.advertisementShe expressed her suspicion regarding the involvement of locals, especially after seeing a viral video of a zip-line operator. "Even our horseman kept asking us questions repeatedly, which makes us doubt local complicity in the attack."According to Aishanya, some members of their family were reluctant to go up, but the horseman insisted for about 10 minutes that they should proceed. "We even offered him the full payment, but he kept pushing us to go ahead," she said. "I only know one thing- if we were Muslims, we would have been saved. We were killed just because we were Hindus."In her emotional plea, Aishanya said that the government's efforts were futile, as the terrorists are still hiding in the area. "Why haven't we been able to find them yet? These terrorists should be shot in front of their own families," she demanded.Shubham was one of the 26 people killed by terrorists in the Baisaran Valley near Pahalgam on April 22. Aishanya is now demanding that Shubham be posthumously recognised as a martyr.
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