New Delhi:
A woman from Kerala, her father and twin sons were enjoying a horse riding in the beautiful Besaran grassland on the second day of their visit to Jammu and Kashmir, when gunshot was played through the valley. People ran towards possible safe places and echoed as a terrible terrorist attack in Pahgam in Jammu and Kashmir.
Amidst the chaos, Arathi and his family jumped from horses and started crawling through a fence, being in a safe place. She used to see an armed man sideways to contact groups of people, asked her a question and then shooting them. As the Kochi native was looking for another place where they could hide from the terrorists, his father N Ramchandram remained calm and asked him to live. “The man came towards us and said that ‘Kalima’ (an Islamic poem). When we said that we could not understand what he was saying, he shot my father,” he told reporters.
As he hugged his father’s bleeding and a lifeless body, the man pointed the gun on Arathi. The attacker only went when his son shouted.
The woman and her sons crawling through the forest to reach a resort, where the Indian Army secured them.
Arathi later came to know that his father was one of 26 citizens, who had gone from a gun during an attack by a proxy resistance front (TRF), a prohibited Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (Late)-based terrorist group.
At this time, the one who stood outside for him was the assistance given by two Kashmiri taxi drivers – travelers and Sameer. He said, “When I went to Morchery and waited with me. At the airport, I told them that I have two brothers now in Kashmir,” he said.
N Ramachandran was cremated with full state honor in Kochi on Friday.
