Terror attack at Baisaran
By: Kanchan Basu
The Horrific Killing of tourists that has left the meadows of Pahalgam stained with the blood of more than two dozen corpses produces a sickening sense of vertigo – like the fall of the falcon, “turning and turning in the widening gyre,” to borrow WB Yeats’ metaphor.
The moral issue in this attack is clear. There are no root causes, no mitigating circumstances that can contextualise its enormity. People were targeted for their religion. We can speculate on the logic of this attack: Was it timed to coincide with a visit by an American leader? Was it planned to divert attention from Balochistan? To wreck Kashmir’s economy? Is the attack part of the Great Game, meant to draw in the Great Powers by creating a sense of crisis? But there is no point speculating on motives. In the end, it is the effect of this act that will matter.
Nestled at an altitude of 8,000 feet amidst lush pine forests, only the jungle crows break the eerie silence around the Baisaran meadow, 5 kilometres from Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir.
The10-foot-high chain-linked fencing stands witness to what happened here, between 2:40 p.m. and 3p.m. on April 22, 2025. In the light afternoon sun, when the meadow held 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 flying bullets. Slippers and shoes of varying sizes, including that of children, are half stuck in mud. Broken sunglasses, purses, shattered phones lie scattered. Inside the meadow, the orange and blue chairs of the open air food court that served noodles, tea, and paani puri, are scattered, marked with 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 cannot sleep after what I saw. I stood there scanning one body after another. Women and children were wailing, calling for help. The scene 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.
Abdul and his younger brother Sajad Wani, were the first to reach the spot after the terrorists’ guns fell silent. He says he froze for a minute, and then gathered himself and choking, sent a voice note to a WhatsApp group of pony operators. “There are bodies on the ground, injured. We need help. Rush all horsemen and ponywalas to Baisaran,” 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 across social media many times now. Then, he says, he moved from person to person saying, “Sab theek ho jayga” (Everything will be fine).
Looking back, Abdul recalls he was reassuring a child whose father was dead, and two women whose husbands were killed. “I couldn’t tell the child his father was dead. I decided to focus on shifting people to Pahalgam hospital. Many were shifted on horseback. My brother Sajad carried one injured tourist on his shoulders,” says Abdul.
The duo emptied a vendor’s charpoy full of sunglasses and converted it into a stretcher to shift the injured. He remembers that many tourists who climbed the fencing were killed outside the boundary wall.
Syed Adil Hussain Shah, 28, a ponywala from Anantnag district’s Hapatnar village, was shot dead for resisting the attackers. The injured, 16 in all, have been shifted to the army hospital in Srinagar. Baisaran is out of bounds for tourists now. Pahalgam 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.
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 cousins Atul Mone (42), Hemant Joshi (48), and Sanjay Lele (47), three victims of the Pahalgam terror attack. Dombivli observed a bandh to protest the killings.
The photos of the cousins 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 away 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, the three families had boarded a train to Ahmedabad, and then flew to Srinagar for a vacation they had been planning for a while.
A day after the funeral, Atul’s wife, Anushka, recounts the horrific day: “We had reached Baisaran around 1 or 1.30. Suddenly we heard gun-fire, 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. They sat, frozen in fear. “After they left, we were in a state of confusion. A few hours later, military and the police escorted us. There were very few choppers. At such a major tourist destination, how come there was no 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.”
Grief Hits in Many Spaces:
The newly-wed Himanshi, 24, from Haryana’s Gurugram, sitting beside the body of her husband Lieutenant Vinay Narwal, 26, on the meadow, became the snapshot of the Pahalgam tragedy. The image was 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, dreamt of joining the Indian Air Force to become a fighter pilot? Considered too tall at 6feet, 3 inches, he joined the Indian Navy.
Vinay’s father, Rajesh, a sales tax official in the Haryana government, says, “This is going to stay with us for the rest of our lives.” He keeps his composure, remembering 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, 37, from Kochi, Kerala, remembers three things: her father, N. Ramachandran, 65, being shot dead; a gun thrust to the back of her head by the same terrorist moments later; and her 7-year-old twins screaming. “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, I ensured the cable TV 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 shielded her mother from those mourning. Sheela 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,” she says. “Let Allah keep you safe,” were her parting words to them.
Security at Risk
Many tourists confirmed to security officials that the terrorists were wearing khaki and black. The police has announced a reward of Rs.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, who believe they belong to the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which has allegedly claimed responsibility for the attack.
Kashmir’s ruling National Conference leader and Pahalgam M.L.A. Altaf Kaloo sees a security lapse. “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 not manned by one armed policeman highlights the grave lapse of security,” he says.
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.
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 terrorists 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 52days, following sightings of armed men nearby.
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. “It takes two to three days of trekking from Baisaran to Warwan valley” a local trekker 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 asking that Pakistani citizens leave the country by April 27.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 has seen an upswing in tourist footfall over the past few years. In 2024, there was a record 2.36crore visitors, with 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 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 years. 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 Nadu, is staying put. “We decided to stay back because our hosts provided us a sense of security and hospitality,” says Singh.
There have been terrorist actions in the past. But the context has changed drastically. For one thing, the view that while these acts are horrible, acting in retaliation would produce worse consequences is no longer tenable.
After Balakot, the norms on how to deal with these incidents have changed. Having the strategic patience to diplomatically grind out Pakistan is no longer a politically viable option. So, action there will be, even if there is no “solution”.
Terrorism does not directly produce domestic communalism in India. Quite the contrary: It also unites India across communities in anger and grief. But what it more subtly does is reinforce the idea that so long as India remains besieged by states like Pakistan, with weaponised religious identities, the 1947 modus Vivendi of a secular India is no longer viable.
Either the logic of 1947 must be completed, or it must be undone. This is the dominant mood in contemporary India. The consequences of either option are too dire to contemplate. The falcon of peace and secularism is in free fall, and there is no falconer to whose call it can respond. The perpetrators of Pahalgam will be brought to justice. But a sense of foreboding about religious violence in South Asia will remain. The terrorists in Pahalgam have put our collective future more beyond our grasp.
(The author is based in Kolkata)
