PAHALGAM: His phone kept ringing. As the president of one of the largest Ponywallah societies in Pahalgam, 39-year-old Abdul Waheed Wani is always popular. But he also kept himself busy to push away the memories that still haunted him.Wani was one of the first people to arrive in the Baisaran Valley following the April 22 terror attack that killed 26 tourists, including local ponies, and injured 17 others. What he saw there came back to him at night and sometimes during the day.“I pray that no one else sees what I saw that day,” he said.On the afternoon of April 22, he received a call from the police saying that something unpleasant had happened in Baisaran. Vani is in a nearby village. He took a shorter route he was familiar with and arrived before police, who took a longer route.“When I reached there, I saw a woman crying, a child crying. Bodies were scattered everywhere,” Wani said. His brother-in-law Sajjad was with him. “There was a moment when I thought I would never come back after seeing what I saw.”As Baisaran’s makeshift shop had been abandoned during the attack, he ran to a shop, picked up a bottle of water and returned to the woman. “I told her the police and the government were coming,” he recalled.Soon after, he sent a message to a WhatsApp group of about 700 ponies, asking everyone to come and help. Only about 15 people made it. Others were stopped by security forces.“We tried to help the injured,” he said. “Baisaran is a large area and the bodies are scattered in different places. It will take time to bring them together.” He paused, then said: “These are not ordinary bodies. They were shot in the head. “Some of the sounds he heard that day stuck with him. One woman refused to leave, he said. “She kept saying, ‘My husband is here. We’re just walking, taking pictures. Where am I going on my own?'” he said.He recalled finding a man among the seven bodies. live. “When we touched him, he spoke. He had gunshot wounds in his neck and arms. I still remember the sound of his voice as he recounted what happened to him.”“Those words have stuck with me,” he added.Wani said they managed to rescue some of the injured. “We put a guy on our shoulders and put him on a forklift. He survived,” he said.These memories weigh heavily on Varney. “Whenever they come back, and they come back often, I try to keep myself occupied. I walk around and find something to do, or pick up the phone and call someone,” he added.
