Pahalgam terror attack: The meadow cries out in fear and grief

Trigger warning: The following story has references to violence. Please avoid reading if you may be disturbed by the details.

Nestled at an altitude of 8,000 feet in the midst of lush pine forests, only the jungle crows break the eerie silence around the Baisaran meadow, 5 kilometres from Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir. The chain-linked fencing stands witness to what happened here, between 2:40 p.m. and 3 p.m. on April 22. When the meadow thronged with about 250 people, most tourists, a group of at least four terrorists selectively killed 25 tourists and injured 16 others on the basis of their religion. A ponywala, one of about 150 who ferries people up to Baisaran, was also killed when he tried to protect the tourists.

Outside the meadow, on the pony trek path, mud and boulders bear the marks of the horror of flying bullets. Slippers and shoes of varying sizes, including that of children, are half stuck in mud. Broken sunglasses, purses, shattered phones still lie scattered. Inside the fenced meadow park, the orange and blue chairs, which served as an open food court serving noodles, tea, and paani puri, remain tilted and scattered with marks of blood. The zipline attached to a pine tree has fallen silent. The zorbing balls are still. Even the fragrance of pine is mixed with a stench.

Going downhill  

“I am not able to sleep after what I saw. I stood there scanning one body after another lying lifeless on the ground. Women and children were wailing, calling for help. It keeps playing in my mind when I try to sleep,” says Abdul Waheed Wani, 38, a pony owner who is also president of the Baisaran Pony Operators Association. Wani and his younger brother Sajad Wani were the first to reach the spot after the terrorists’ guns fell silent. Abdul froze for a minute, then gathered himself and then almost choking, sent a voice note to a WhatsApp group of pony operators. “There are bodies on the ground and injured. We need help. Rush all horsemen and pony operators to Baisaran for rescue,” he had said, in Urdu. 

Abdul also shot a video of the scene to share on the group, to give them the scale of the tragedy. The video has been shared many times now. Then, he moved from person to person saying, “Sab theek ho jagya” (Everything will be fine). Looking back at his video, Abdul recalls that this assurance came to him when a child whose father was dead, and two women, whose husbands were killed, sought his help. “I couldn’t tell the child his father was dead. I decided to focus on shifting people to Pahalgam hospital. Many were shifted on horsebacks. My brother Sajad carried one injured tourist on his shoulders,” says Abdul. 

He emptied a vendor’s charpoy full of sunglasses and converted it into a stretcher to shift the injured. He remembers how many tourists who climbed the 10-foot high fencing were chased and killed outside the boundary wall.

Syed Adil Hussain Shah, 28, a ponywala from Anantnag district’s Hapatnar, was shot dead for resisting the attackers.

Also read: Editorial on the Pahalgam terror attack

In the aftermath, panicked tourists were offered a free ride to the Srinagar airport. “Around 150 free taxi rides were arranged for stranded tourists to shift them to the Srinagar airport and Jammu. We did not charge them anything,” says Adil Ahmad, chairman of the Tourist Taxi Stand Pahalgam. The stand has 1,200 registered taxis and the livelihood of drivers depends on tourist footfall. In Srinagar, several locals and hotel owners offered free stay for stranded tourists.

As the incident panicked tourists staying in Kashmir, scores of locals took to social media and offered help. “Anyone on my list who directly or indirectly knows any tourist or friends in distress please get in touch for any help in Srinagar. My house on the airport road Srinagar is open for accommodation or any sort of help whatsoever,” Shoaib Mehraj, a local businessman, wrote on Facebook. Similar messages were flashed across the social media platforms to reach out to anxious tourists. 

Baisaran is out of bounds for tourists now. It was once Bollywood’s favourite haunt, where blockbusters like the Rajesh Khanna-starrer Roti (1974) and Ranbir Kapoor-starrer Rockstar (2011) were shot. “Around 1,500 visitors would visit Baisaran every day. It provided a livelihood to over 500 locals, from pony operators to shawl sellers,” says Shafi Wani, another pony operator.

Security personnel patrol in the Pahalgam area of Jammu and Kashmir on April 23, 2025, a day after the terrorist attack.
| Photo Credit:
Imran Nissar

Mumbai’s maidan mourns

On April 23, the grief shifted to another meadow: Hundreds gathered in the evening in Bhagshala maidan in Dombivli, on the outskirts of Mumbai, to mourn the deaths of the cousins Atul Mone (42), Hemant Joshi (48), and Sanjay Lele (47), the three victims of the Pahalgam terror attack. Dombivli observed a bandh to protest the killings.

The photos of three victims lined Karve road, which was barricaded for vehicular movement. In the maidan, on a stage cloaked in white, were larger than life black-and-white pictures of the three men, forming a backdrop. A few metres, there were more pictures, for people to pay homage with flowers. At 8 p.m. the bodies were carried on to stage, in the presence of Maharashtra’s Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis. The families bid their last goodbyes, before taking the bodies to the cremation ground, about 2 km away, on foot.

Before the caskets were lifted, the crowd chanted in anger, “Pakistan Murdabad!” Mone’s daughter, Richa, a 12th-grade student, performed the last rites for her father. On April 20, Atul and two cousins, with their families, boarded a train to Ahmedabad, and from there flew to Srinagar for a vacation they had been planning for a long time. 

A day after the funeral, Mone’s wife, Anushka, recounts the horrific day: “We had reached Baisaran around 1 or 1.30. It was a bright day. Suddenly we heard gunfire, but mistook it for some adventure activity. In no time, we saw men carrying guns. Their faces were covered. They asked us whether we were Hindu or Muslim four times. When none of us said anything, my husband asked them, ‘Why are you pointing guns at us? We have not done anything?’ And they shot him,” she says, breaking down.

Richa remembers that there was no escape, and they sat, frozen in fear. “After they left, we were in a state of confusion. A few hours later, military and police personnel escorted us. There were very few choppers. At such a major tourist destination, how come there was no proper security?” she says.

At the army base in Pahalgam, Anushka remembers, “A woman with two children was fainting in fear. It was a nightmare we never thought we would encounter.” 

Ravi Kumar, Joshi’s neighbour and friend says they moved into the same apartment block in 2012. He cannot believe he was killed on a holiday. Joshi’s colleagues from the shipping logistics company he worked for have come to the funeral from across Mumbai. “He was a very lively person, and we have worked together for over 13 years in the same company. He had told us last week about the trip and how excited he was,” one person said.

Away from the funeral, at Lele’s apartment block, Bhupendra Velankar, an artiste in the film industry, who had studied with him in school and grew up with him, stands with a plastic bag of garlands. He breaks down, saying, “We used to sit on the same bench in school. Every morning I would ask him why his white shirt was already soiled, and he would laugh because he used to run to the ground to play cricket as soon as he got to school.”

A tourist after the terror strike in J&K’s Pahalgam on April 22, 2025.
| Photo Credit:
ANI

Grief hits in many spaces

The newly-wed Himanshi, age, from Haryana’s Gurugram, sitting beside the body of her husband Lieutenant Vinay Narwal, 26, became the snapshot of the Pahalgam tragedy, with the image widely circulated on social and news media soon after the terror attack.

Just six days after the two had tied the knot at a wedding ceremony in Mussoorie. They had planned to fly to Switzerland for their honeymoon, but when they didn’t get a visa, decided on Pahalgam, often called mini Switzerland. Vinay, who was from Karnal, in Haryana, and the only son of his parents, had a dream to join the Indian Air Force and become the fighter pilot, but considered too tall at 6 feet, 3 inches, he joined the Indian Navy.

Vinay’s father, Rajesh, a sales tax official in the Haryana government, says the celebrations were not yet over, when the tragedy struck. “It is going to stay with us for the rest of our lives,” says Rajesh, managing to keep his composure. He remembered his son as an “outstanding student” and a “dashing young officer”.

In a video that went viral in the aftermath of the attack, Himanshi can be heard saying, “I was eating bhelpuri and my husband was standing by my side. A man came and shot him.”

Breaking news  

Arathy Sarath, age, from Kochi, Kerala, remembers three things clearly: her father, N. Ramachandran, 65, being shot dead; a gun thrust to the back of her head by the same militant moments later; and her 7-year-old twins screams. “I don’t know whether he intended to shoot me or did it merely to scare me. He probably spared me after hearing my children,” she says. Later, she joined the others fleeing down the hilltop along the horse route to the town. She rang her local cab driver, Musafir, who drove them away to safety.

Sheela, Sarath’s mother did not go to Baisaran, as it involved a steep trek. “In the hotel room where we were put up, I ensured the cable television network remained disconnected. Even when I spoke to the cops, I asked them not to tell my mother about the tragedy,” she says. Later, at the Srinagar airport, she ensured her mother was not in the midst of those mourning. She didn’t know her husband’s body was on the same flight on which she returned.

 “Musafir and another local driver, Sameer, were with me all through, including when I stood outside the morgue until 3 in the morning. They treated me like a younger sister. Kashmir has now given me two brothers. When I bid them farewell at the airport, I told them as much,” she says. “Let Allah keep you safe,” were her parting words to them. On social media, when she recounted her words, anger and hatred spewed. A national tragedy was being used to stoke hatred.

Security at risk 

Many tourists confirmed to security officials that the terrorists were wearing khaki and black uniforms. The police has announced a reward of ₹20 lakh each for information on Adil Hussain Thoker, a resident of Anantnag; Ali Bhai alias Talha Bhai and Hasim Musa alias Suleiman, both Pakistan nationals. The houses of Thoker and another suspect Asif Sheikh from Tral in Pulwama district have been demolished during search operations by security forces. Security forces believe they belong to the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which has allegedly claimed responsibility for the attack.

The ruling National Conference (NC) leader and Pahalgam MLA Altaf Kaloo sees a security lapse in the Pahalgam incident. “It’s a clear case of intelligence failure. Now, if they had intelligence and did not act, questions need to be raised. A tourist spot that hosts more than 1,500 tourists a day not manned by one armed policeman highlights the grave lapse on part of security forces,” he says.

Officials from the Home Ministry and the Intelligence Bureau have said there was no police permission to open the Baisaran meadow to tourists.

Pahalgam is one of Kashmir’s three main holiday hill-stations, the other two being Gulmarg and Sonmarg, all vulnerable to militants sneaking in because of tough topography. Baisaran has posed a challenge to security agencies in the past too. During the 2024 Amarnath yatra, it was closed for 52 days following the sighting of armed men near Baisaran. Locals say a camp of security forces was erected to man the Baisaran meadow in the summer of 2024 during the annual pilgrimage, and withdrawn after more than three months.

On one side of Baisaran are craggy mountain cliffs, snow-capped peaks, and deep valleys, connecting Pahalgam with Kishtwar district’s Warwan area in the Chenab valley, with inhabitable passes. “It takes two to three days of trekking from Baisaran to Warwan valley,” a local trekker said. 

Officials in security agencies said there were intelligence inputs about terrorists identifying a “high-value target” in J&K. One input even identified the tourism industry as terrorists’ likely target, officials said.

Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated after the attack, with India downgrading diplomatic ties with its neighbour, holding the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance, and an announcement for all Pakistani citizens to leave the country by April 27. In retaliation, Pakistan closed air space for Indian carriers and the Pakistan army reportedly fired across the Line of Control.

Tourism season takes a hit

According to J&K government figures, the State saw an upswing in tourist footfall in the past few years and reached a record 2.36 crore in 2024, which included 0.65 lakh foreign tourists, 5.12 lakh Amarnath pilgrims, and 94.56 lakh Vaishno Devi devotees. Around 26 lakh travelled to the 10 districts of the Kashmir valley. The Gulmarg Gondola alone attracted 7.68 lakh visitors in 2024. It also saw a revival in border tourism for the first time in 30 years in regions like Gurez, Keran, and Karnah.

In the forests and small hamlets between Langanbal and Yanner, adjacent to Pahalgam, a 10-km long stretch, dozens of new hotels are being constructed. “The new hotels came up with the hope that all segments of tourists could be catered to,” says Niyaz Ahmad, a hotelier. “People took huge loans from banks to invest in the tourism sector. The investments are gone for now,” he adds.

From hoteliers to cab owners, the act of terror has dented the prospects of tourism in Kashmir. Tanveer Ahmad, 33, has run cabs for tourists for many decades. This year, Ahmad bought four more taxis against loans. “Most of my cabs were booked for April and May. Within 24 hours of the Pahalgam attack, there were 47 cancellations for April and 28 for May,” Ahmad says.

Tilak Singh, 38, a lawyer from Tamil Naidu, is staying put. “We decided to stay back because our hosts provided us a sense of security and hospitality,” says Singh.