Month: April 2025

[ad_1] KOLKATA: He was held at gunpoint and asked whether he was a Hindu or a Muslim. He stayed mum. They then asked him to recite Kalma. He couldn't and admitted he was a Hindu. Before he could finish the sentence, they shot him dead.Sohini Adhikary (37), the widow of Florida-based techie Bitan Adhikary, couldn't hold back her tears while recounting the horrific experience of the terror strike in which she lost her husband. Never did she imagine that the vacation to the picturesque valley would change her life forever.Bitan (40), a software engineer at Brandon in Florida, was among the three victims of the terrorist attack in the Baisaran valley of Pahalgam, Kashmir — a popular tourist spot often called ‘Mini Switzerland' — on Tuesday afternoon.Sohini, a homemaker, said it was a surprise trip that Bitan had planned meticulously […]

[ad_1] Minister of Defence of Pakistan Khawaja Asif ISLAMABAD: Pakistan attempted to distance itself from Sunday’s murderous terrorist attack on tourists in Pahalgam that claimed at least 26 lives, with defence minister Khawaja Asif claiming on Wednesday his country had “nothing to do” with the massacre of Indian tourists and referring to it as a “home-grown” uprising against India’s “Hindutva regime”.Speaking to a Pakistani TV channel, Asif alleged there were rebellions across the Indian states of Nagaland, Kashmir and Manipur. The minister’s remarks reflect Islamabad’s narrative of framing the violence as a local response to Indian policies, contrasting with India’s accusations of Pakistani support for militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba.The minister’s statements, steeped in denial and deflection, sidestepped Pakistan’s well-documented ties to terror groups.Asif’s comments come soon after Pakistan army chief General Asim Munir’s provocative April 16 speech in which he […]

[ad_1] Complete shutdown in protest against terror attack PAHALGAM: A buzzing hill station turned into a ghost town overnight as forlorn business owners and their staff huddled in silence outside shuttered shops on Wednesday, bracing for worse.Umar Majid stood in front of his Dana Rasoli restaurant at Yanner rafting point, the entry point to Pahalgam, and spoke of how Tuesday’s carnage may have changed everything for the worse.“We are devastated by what happened,” said Umar, an arts graduate who opened his restaurant last year.“I was used to serving hundreds of customers every day. Business was so hectic that I would often miss lunch,” he said.Tuesday saw a rush of a different kind. Terrified faces filled Umar’s restaurant and other eateries nearby as soon as news arrived of the terrorist attack in Baisaran meadow. “We were as shocked as they were. […]

[ad_1] Mihir and Komal Soni at IGI Airport on Wednesday, before heading home to Jaipur. The couple says they will never return to Kashmir NEW DELHI: Komal Soni was still teary-eyed and yet relieved when she boarded the flight out of Srinagar and reached Delhi airport, a day after the terrorist attack took place in Baisaran meadow, about 5km from Pahalgam. Her fingers clutched Mihir's hand tightly as if letting go would bring the sounds back - shots, screams, and the silence that followed.Just two months into their marriage, the young couple came to Pahalgam hoping to escape to the hills - their "mini Switzerland". Wrapped in woollens, they were laughing over a steaming bowl of Maggi and clicking selfies when it happened."A sudden crack in the air. One shot, and then another," Komal recalled, her voice barely above a […]

[ad_1] NEW DELHI: Linking the Pahalgam terror strikes by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Pakistan’s ISI to the seizure of 3,000 kg of heroin worth Rs 21,000 crore at Mundra port, National Investigation Agency (NIA) told Supreme Court that this was part of LeT’s narco-trafficking strategy—to raise money for its terror activities and weaken India by selling drugs to the youth.“Look what they did to India at Pahalgam by shooting innocent tourists,” additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati told a bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh on Wednesday and explained how similar consignments were earlier brought to India from Afghanistan using valid documents relating to talc stones. The money raised through the sale of drugs, imported using valid channels and stored at warehouses in Neb Sarai and Alipur in Delhi, was then routed to LeT, they said, while alleging that […]

[ad_1] PAHALGAM: Not long ago, a bandh in J&K would invariably mean a protest against the government orchestrated by a terrorist or separatist group. The page turned Wednesday, the morning after the horrors in Pahalgam, as the valley shut down to disown the perpetrators of what many termed “murder of Kashmiriyat” and an act that had heaped “shame” on Kashmiris.Shops didn’t open, traffic was off the road, and schools and colleges remained closed amid protests resonating from south to north Kashmir against Tuesday’s terrorist attack on a throng of tourists at Pahalgam’s Baisaran meadow.In Srinagar, PDP chief and ex-CM Mehbooba Mufti led a protest against the killings at the historic Lal Chowk. She had given the strike call along with the separatist Hurriyat chief and J&K’s head cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.“We want to convey to the people of the country […]

[ad_1] HAPAT NAR: The funeral of pony handler Syed Adil Hussain Shah, the lone Kashmiri Muslim killed in the terror attack on tourists in Pahalgam’s Baisaran meadow, saw J&K CM Omar Abdullah joining thousands of locals Wednesday in saluting the victim for his reported attempt to save lives by attempting to snatch a terrorist’s rifle.“He tried to stop the attack. We have heard that he was targeted after he tried to snatch the gun…We have to take care of this family. I have come here to assure them that the govt stands with them and will do whatever we can,” Omar said.Based on interactions with the survivors, sources in the security establishment said it was “premature” to confirm the exact circumstances of 30-something Adil’s death. “We are familiar with the account that he was killed while trying to stop the […]

[ad_1] Kaustubh Gunbote with parents & wife (L), Santosh Jagdale and his family PUNE: It was a friendship that had survived most of life's twists and turns. But on their first holiday together with each other's families, to beautiful Pahalgam, both Kaustubh Gunbote (58) and Santosh Jagdale (50) would be shot by terrorists, becoming the two casualties from Pune.Both were shot in front of their families. Gunbote leaves behind a wife, a son and daughter-in-law. Jagdale is survived by his wife and daughter.They were on the holiday with their wives, and Jagdale's daughter, Asawari. "It was the hospital that informed us that they had succumbed to bullet injuries. We three women instantly felt alone," Asawari told TOI on Wednesday. Hours after the attack on Tuesday, she told reporters in Srinagar that the terrorists had asked her father to recite the […]