Difficult to visit Kashmir again: Family who narrowly escaped Pahalgam attack site
Terror struck India again on April 22 when 26 innocent lives were lost and many others were shattered after the dastardly terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam. The victims and their family members would have wished they had never visited the Baisaran meadows where the attack took place. However, some people consider themselves lucky, and thank god for somehow not making it to the site of the attack and running either ahead of or behind their schedule.advertisementThe family of Dehradun resident KS Chauhan, Assistant Director in the Uttarakhand Information Department, was one such bunch of people who were scheduled to reach Baisaran meadows on the fateful day, but circumstances kept them from reaching there at the wrong time.In a special conversation with India Today, KS Chauhan said that he reached Pahalgam with his wife, his son and daughter on April 22 at around 1 pm. He first planned to visit Baisaran valley, but his son insisted that they should rather first check-in to the hotel and visit the scenic site post lunch, to which KS Chauhan agreed.
Even after lunch, the Chauhan family, for reasons unknown, inadvertently chose to visit another popular tourist site, Betaab valley, instead of Baisaran meadows, he said. There he came to know through people that a terrorist attack had taken place in the Baisaran valley.advertisementThe family returned to their hotel where they could see helicopters rushing towards the site of the attack as complete chaos followed. KS Chauhan further said that all the shops in the nearby market were closed and there was a huge traffic jam as vehicles piled up one behind the other.He also narrated the kind of feeling and emotions that got the better of his family as the news of the death of 26 civilians reached them.Chauhan said his wife was so scared that she did not let him turn on the lights in their room, fearing terrorists might find them. Security forces reached the hotel in the morning, taking stock of everyone's well-being, he said. The family was happy at being alive but was scared to the very core too, Chauhan added."We were unable to understand as to how we would now reach home. The roads which were buzzing with tourists were now taken over by Army vehicles," Chauhan said.When he asked a shopkeeper, he said while crying, that they had never imagined that there would be a terrorist attack in Pahalgam. According to KS Chauhan, local shopkeepers, hotel staff and other people associated with the hospitality industry were in utter despair after the attack, fearing no one would visit Pahalgam now.advertisement"There is a lot of anger against terrorism in Kashmir now. It will not be easy for us to go to Kashmir now," Chauhan concluded.At least 26 people, 25 of whom were tourists, were killed when four to five terrorists opened fire at them at Pahalgam's Baisaran meadows on April 22. The attack was claimed by The Resistance Force (TRF), an offshoot of Pakistani terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).Tune InMust Watch
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