BHUBANESWAR: Had it not been for the ill-health of 3-year-old Satvik, his parents and their five friends from Puri district would have faced the terror attack at Pahalgam’s Baisaran valley.
Since Satvik was suffering from fever, his parents Swarup Jena and Puja Sundaray, and their five friends had to wrap up their visit to the Baisaran valley in 30 minutes. This turned out to be the very reason they are alive today. The Odia tourists were barely 500 metre downhill from the valley when the attacks began.
Belonging to various villages of Satyabadi block and Sakhigopal, they had travelled together to Srinagar on April 16 to spend a week at Jammu & Kashmir. Apart from Satvik and his parents, the group included sarpanch of Nuasameswarpur gram panchayat (GP) Prasanta Kumar Pani, sarpanch of Biraramachandrapur GP Barsarani Sethi and her husband Prasant Kumar Sethi, PS member of Jaypur GP Dipak Kumar Satpathy and Tofan Behera of Sriramchadrapur GP.
Their last destination was Pahalgam before they returned to Odisha through Jammu and New Delhi on April 22. Escaping Pahalgam to reach Jammu, though, was a 15-hour ordeal owing to the terror attack. Relief came at the hands of MP Sambit Patra who stepped in to help the stranded tourists.
The group arrived in Pahalgam on April 20 and on the fateful day, they decided to visit the Baisaran Valley. “We hired seven mules and started heading to the valley which was an hour-long uphill journey. Satvik was already unwell and since the road was extremely muddy, the journey to Baisaran was tiring for him and all of us. When we reached Baisaran around noon, Satvik became restless,” recalled Prasanta.
While Satvik’s parents Swarup and Puja were already worried about their son’s health, the couple saw some shepherds on the way carrying guns and there was no security around. “We were terrified seeing them having guns. For some time, we were reluctant to proceed further. But the pony ride operators told us that it was normal and that visiting the valley was worth an experience. Reluctantly, we arrived at the valley,” said Puja.
However, owing to the child’s ill-health, they decided to wind up their valley visit in 30 minutes. The group had reached just 500 metre downhill when they heard gunshots. Confusing it for fireworks, they headed back to their hotel.
“On reaching the hotel after an hour, we were told that there had been a terrorist attack in the valley. Within a few hours, the security forces rushed in and there was chaos everywhere. We contacted MP Sambit Patra and told him about the situation. He immediately coordinated with Governor Manoj Sinha to take us out of Pahalgam,” said Prasanta.
Since there were no tickets available for the next train to Delhi, the MP with help of Union Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw could manage three seats in Malwa Superfast Express from Jammu. With much difficulty, they reached Delhi on Wednesday night and Patra brought them to Odisha on Thursday.