KARNAL, India (AP) — When Aishanya and Shubham Dwivedi married in February, they began planning a vacation to Indian-controlled Kashmir to celebrate.
When Aishanya and Shubham Dwivedi married in February, they began planning a vacation to Indian-controlled Kashmir to celebrate.
As the couple paused for a snack in its lush Pahalgam meadow surrounded by snow-capped Himalayan peaks, a man approached them from behind. He didn’t look threatening at first, Aishanya told The Associated Press. She thought he might be a local guide.
She said the man looked at the couple with piercing eyes and asked one question: “Are you a Hindu or a Muslim?” If they were Muslim, he said, they should recite the Islamic declaration of faith.
The couple froze. Aishanya thought it was perhaps some local performance. “We are Hindus,” her husband said.
Without hesitation, the man pulled out a gun and shot him “point blank in the head,” Aishanya, 29, said, and sobbed. Her husband collapsed on her, soaking her in blood.
The man turned the gun on her, then changed his mind. She said the intent was clear: “He wanted to kill men and leave women behind to mourn, cry and narrate the dastardly ordeal.”
She heard the man, joined by other attackers, tell tourists: “Tell your government. Tell Modi what we did.” The tourists ran for their lives.
