A man from Maharashtra’s Jalna, who recently returned from Jammu and Kashmir, claimed that one of the suspected attackers of the Pahalgam terror killing spoke to him a day before the attack.
“Hindu ho kya. You don’t look like you are from Kashmir,” Adarsh Raut, recalling his interaction with a man at a food stall in the Baisaran Valley on April 21, told PTI.
Raut told PTI he had gone horse riding in Pahalgam on April 21 and had stopped at a “Maggi stall” for food when a man approached him and asked him if he was a Hindu. He also told Raut that he did not look like a Kashmiri.
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“The suspect then turned to his companion and said, ‘There’s less crowd today,” said Raut.
The Jalna resident said he found the conversation a bit disturbing but did not grasp the full implication of it until the following day, when terrorists killed 26 people, mostly tourists, in the same area.
“After I saw the sketches released by the NIA (National Investigation Agency), I connected the dots,” he claimed. Raut said he has emailed the NIA a detailed account of his experience in Kashmir.
“I have written everything I could remember. I have also mentioned that I could not initially pay the Maggi stall owner due to network issues. I took his phone number and paid him once I came down from the hill,” he said.
Raut said he has not received any response from the NIA. “I’ll cooperate with them in every possible way if they reach out to me,” he told PTI.
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NIA investigating Pahalgam terror attack
The National Investigation Agency has questioned several people that included the family members of victims and tourists present at the attack site, pony riders among others, since it took over the Pahalgam attack case from the Jammu and Kashmir Police.
The agency took over the case five days after the incident and four days after its team visited the attack site and started supporting the J&K in probing what is considered the deadliest assault on civilians in the region in almost twenty years.
The NIA teams have been camping at the Pahalgam terror attack site since April 23 and have intensified the search for evidence.
The teams, overseen by an Inspector General, a Deputy Inspector General, and a Superintendent of Police, are examining the eyewitnesses who had seen the horrifying attack unfold before their eyes at the peaceful and picturesque Baisaran valley.
(With PTI inputs)