Voices Devdutt Pattanaik Dinesh Singh Ravi Shankar Preeti Shenoy Utkarsh Amitabh Mata Amritanandamayi THE new sunday express MAGAZINE Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment august 3 2025 SUNDAY PAGES 12 100 days after the Pahalgam Massacre All Quiet on the Northern Front B By Iram Ara Ibrahim lood on the ground. Fear in the air. Hope on the horizon. Hundred days have passed since terrorists murdered 26 tourists on April 22 in Pahalgam’s idyllic Baisaran meadow. Now Kashmir and Kashmiris are trapped between two deadly vectors: the fear of being dragged out of home and shot by security forces and fear of terrorists committing another massacre which would further disrupt the conflict torn economy of the state that had begun to sprout some green shoots. Nafisa Dar, 28, is a student at the University of Kashmir. Her PhD dissertation is due in two weeks, but she is distraught; her eyes keep drifting towards the broken roof of her house. Her 60-year-old father, Manzoor Dar, spent his lifetime savings on building the house which is situated in the border village of Chowkibal, 40 km from the Line of Control. Now the building is battle-scarred. The walls are blackened, there is the skeletal remain of the outer boundary the roof has a gaping hole in , it. Nafisa and her father (names changed), are wary of talking about what they went through. “How do we talk of lives paused, sleep cycles disrupted, savings depleted, and to rebuild what we had already built,” Nafisa laments. During the night of May 8, the day after Operation Sindoor, the Pakistan Army resorted to heavy shelling across the LoC—Kupwara, Baramulla, Uri and Akhnoor areas were hit badly The . ceasefire between India and Pakistan may have paused the military conflict, but for Kashmiris like Nafisa and her family turbulent times are far from over. , “We want peace. We have careers to build. The vulnerability of living in a border town can’t keep pushing us back,” Nafisa says. Other families in the area share her pain. Basant Sharma and his cousin Alok Sharma are working on the village Sarpanch Mohmad Maqbool Khan’s broken house. The Sharma brothers are construction workers from Bihar and have been living in the Valley since 2007. “We have lived here for almost 20 years. But the looming fear of violence doesn’t allow us to take the risk of bringing our families here,” rues Basant. The contract to rebuild the Sarpanch’s house was given to them two weeks after the carnage in May “The cost of repair . has touched `3 lakh already It is difficult . to bring material up here. Maqbool sahab told me that the government is yet to give any compensation,” Alok says. Across the road from the house, a grocery store owner laughs at the mention of government compensation. “You know how much the government is giving us? `5,000 for damages worth lakhs. No one pays the cost of war except those suffering it.” Another kind of terror has raised its head among Kashmiris after the Pahalgam massacre—one that wears uniform and speaks the language of suspicion. Six years after the abrogation of Article 370, on August 5, 2019, there was the hope that maybe the usual Iram Ara Ibrahim disruptions to normalcy were over. The attack in Baisaran was a hard pushback against that hope. Suddenly Kashmir is a , terrain of conflict again. There were always boots on the ground. But now locals whisper of midnight knocks, of young men taken from their homes without explanation, of families left with unanswered questions. In Lidroo village, a short drive uphill from Pahalgam, 19-year-old Ishfaq Ahmad (name changed) was picked up by security personnel for “questioning” a week after the attack. His charred body was found two days later near the banks of the Lidder River. The army labelled him a militant; in heartbreaking self-denial, his mother still sets out his tea every morning. In another hamlet near Aishmuqam, Parvaiz Lone (name changed), a pony handler, was shot in what authorities described as an encounter in the forests above Aru. Those who knew him scoff at the official version. “Parvaiz didn’t know how to fire a gun,” says his neighbour. “The only thing he ever aimed at was getting tourists a good view.” Member of Legislative Assembly from Pulwama, Waheed Para, says, “Tourism to terrorism is what the last 100 days have been about. After the April 22 killings, Kashmiris came out on the streets to condemn the attack. But the same people who protested against the killings were made to suffer. Young men were randomly picked from their houses. Almost 3,000 people were arrested after the attack. It is always the common Kashmiri who suffers.” On July 29, J&K National Conference MP Aga Syed , Ruhulla Mehdi, condemning the Pahalgam attack, reiterated the same in the Parliament. He claimed that many young Kashmiris were arrested. He also slammed the Centre over razing 13 houses of “suspected militants”. “They could have been responsible. But there was no proof. How could you raze 13 houses merely based on suspicion?” asked Ruhullah. The administration, however, is doing its best to restore normalcy A cyclot. hon—Pedal through Paradise—recently drew participants from all walks of life. A contestant says, “Organised by the Jammu and Kashmir Police it is a message for those who try to disrupt peace.” Earlier in June, another cyclothon had been organised by the Jammu and Kashmir Sports Council in Srinagar. The event underscored the region’s commitment to fostering peace. In spite of the hesitant sanguinity a , creeping dread has settled into every home, tea shop and commercial establishment. Since April, parents have stopped letting their sons wander too far from home. Young men walk with their heads down, phones wiped clean of anything remotely political. Conversations end abruptly when a uniformed figure passes by Even the elders—who’ve . seen the worst of decades past—say the fear feels different this time. Fear of another terrorist attack and escalation in violence. Fear of a ruthless crackdown by the forces. There may be apprehensions of visiting Kashmir, but there are intrepid travellers who take the chance, drawn by the eternal beauty of Kashmir. It is a rainy summer day and Anirudha , Tarafdar, 62, and his family of four have come to Pahalgam from Howrah in West Bengal. Heading towards the Betaab Valley a tourist destination named after , the 1983 film Betaab, which was shot there, Tarafdar is humming a popular song from the film that had young lovers in Kashmir once holding hands in packed movie halls: “Jab hum jawan honge, Jaane kahan honge, Lekin jahan honge, Wahan fariyaad karenge, Tumhe yaad karenge.” (When we become adults, I don’t know where we’d be, But no matter where I am, I would remember you.) “Look around you. How many tourists can you see? The attack has left a deep sense of fear among people. A lot of my friends tried to stop me from visiting Kashmir. Coming here takes a lot of guts,” he says, turning back to see if his young daughter is alright. The young girl, unlike her father, looks somewhat pensive. Her face reflects the fear of the April 22 bloodshed. “Bhoy laage (I feel afraid),” Turn to page 2 A soldier holding a gun standing near the picturesque Dal Lake in Srinagar "Maintaining order is not easy for the security forces either. But they’ve achieved great success after neutralising the mastermind behind the attack." Shiv M Sahai, Former Addl Secy, National Security Council “Almost 3,000 people were arrested after the attack. It is always the common Kashmiri who suffers.” Waheed Para, Member of Legislative Assembly, J&K With no visitors for months, the pony stand at Pahalgam is a picture of despair