Karnataka families who were at Pahalgam return home safely

CHIKKAMAGALUR, GADAG: A few families from Karnataka, who had been to Kashmir at the time of the Pahalgam terrorist attack on innocent tourists, have returned home safely. While one family from Chikkamagalur was saved by a few minutes when the attack was taking place, another group from Gadag had left the place two days ago and were safe in Ujjain.

Three tourists from Karnataka — Manjunath Rao of Shivamogga, Bharat Bhushan of Bengaluru and Madhusudhan Rao, a techie working in Bengaluru and hailing from Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh — were among the 25 Indian citizens and one Nepali citizen who were gunned down by terrorists in the Baisaran meadow in Pehalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, on April 22 when they were soaking in the scenic beauty.

The family of Chandrashekar, from Rameshwar Nagar in Chikkamagaluru, had visited the ruins of the Vishnu temple in Avantipora and were delayed in reaching Pahalgam. As they were approaching the Baisaran meadow, they saw people hurriedly returning saying that the road was closed.

“We spent some time at the temple learning about its historical significance and then went to the saffron market. Due to this, we got a bit delayed. If we had reached the Baisaran meadow 10-15 minutes earlier, we would have got caught in the terrorist attack. We had planned to visit Sonmarg and Gulmarg to experience the snow, but cut short our trip and returned”, said Chandrashekar.

His wife Lalitha said, “We didn’t hear any gunshots, but we saw people rushing back. When we asked what was the issue, the pony ride operators said the road was closed as a tree had fallen and they took use to a deviation. They brought us back to the base safely. Later, they mentioned about shooting and bombs being tied to ponies, but they never spoke about the killing of tourists as people would have panicked”.

Meanwhile, a group of 10 people from Gadag, who were part of a larger group of 46 tourists from Hubballi, including women and children, returned home safely. The group from Gadag was at Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh when the terrorist attack at Pahalgam occurred.

“We were shocked to learn about the terrorist attack as the heaven on Earth had been turned into hell. We had been at Pahalgam with our families just two days earlier and enjoyed the scenic beauty. After hearing about the terror attack, we didn’t feel like continuing our vacation in Jammu and Kashmir”, they said.