Pahalgam attack: Baisaran turns into a valley of terror

Srinagar: Multiple gunshots tore apart the serenity of Baisaran area in the mountains of Pahalgam in Kashmir’s Anantnag district on Tuesday afternoon when tourists were busy vlogging and clicking pictures in the Valley, locally known as mini-Switzerland.

Pony Wala Association president Abdul Waheed Wani, who till now transported tourists from Pahalgam market to Baisaran Valley on ponies and horses, was now transporting injured tourists back to medical centres for treatment. As the area is tucked in the mountains with no motorable road, the rescue was arduous, painful and unprecedented.

“I was shocked to see bodies strewn across this lush green Valley. They were at different spots and I preferred to save the injured,” Wani told ET. He reached the spot nearly 20 minutes after the gunshots were heard around 2:05 pm. When Wani trekked back to the spot, he saw a few tourists and locals shivering and looking for help. “I immediately identified the injured and started putting them on horsebacks as everyone including the tourists and shopkeepers had fled the scene,” said Wani, who was the first to rescue at least 11 injured people. When forces arrived at the spot, he was not allowed to go further in the area. Wani said tourists were in a shock and they started checking out from all Pahalgam hotels immediately.

Tourists captured videos of attackers shooting indiscriminately and women crying for help, with their loved ones lying in pools of blood. “Terrorists have attacked here and we managed to escape. Parmatama will do good to us and we will be saved,” said a tourist in one of the vlogs. A woman was seen crying, “My husband was shot. Please save him.” Another woman said the attackers asked for the identity of my husband and later shot him.

A tourist from Maharashtra said that her father was asked to ‘recite Azaan’ which he couldn’t and was immediately shot dead. “They left women and children and mostly targeted male tourists. Locals also urged and helped us to flee from the spot till forces arrived,” she said on social media. Another tourist from Karnataka who had shot a video on Dal Lake of Srinagar along with his wife, a day earlier, was killed here.

An eyewitness said attackers asked for the ‘identity as well as the religion of male tourists’. “One of the attackers rued about the propaganda against people of Kashmir and high-handedness of the Modi-led government before shooting my father,” a tourist was quoted in news interviews.