Jalna, 30 April

A young man from Jalna city in Maharashtra, who recently returned from Kashmir, has claimed that one of the suspected attackers in the Pahalgam terror case spoke to him a day before the carnage.

“Hindu ho kya. You don’t look like you are from Kashmir,” said Adarsh Raut, recalling his interaction with a man at a food stall in the Baisaran Valley on 21 April.

Twenty-six people, mostly tourists, were killed and several were injured when terrorists opened fire at a meadow near the popular tourist town of Pahalgam in south Kashmir's Anantnag district on 22 April.

Days after the massacre of tourists, security agencies released sketches of three suspected attackers, and one of them matched the person who had spoken to him, Raut told the media on Tuesday.

According to Raut, he had gone horse riding in Pahalgam on 21 April 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.

“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 over two dozen tourists in cold blood 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 added.