Pahalgam One Year Later:  Families Of Victims Still Seek Answers 

“All my happiness started with my family. My day always begun with my husband and daughter there and preparing their tiffins in the morning. I dedicated all 29 years of my married life to my family; I don't think I lived for myself at all. My world was built around him, ” says Pragati Jagdale, the widow of Santosh Jagdale, who was killed exactly a year ago in the Pahalgam attack. 

She says, “After 22 April, all the daily happenings in my life stopped. The whole house has fallen silent. I have not been able to laugh.” 

The memory of the brutal attack by militants on tourists, including her own husband, in Pahalgam, is still fresh. Santosh Jagdale was one of the 26 Indians who were killed after being asked their religion at gunpoint. 

As the nation looks back and remembers this dark day, the Jagdale family continues to speak and share their story, one that must not be forgotten. 

What was supposed to be a one last family trip before their daughter, Asawari Jagdale, got married, turned out to be a day that would forever change the lives of what is now a family of two from Pune. 

Asawari recalls that the family had left Pune on 19 April to reach Delhi. From there, they had to rush to make it to the Vande Bharat Train to Jammu. “We almost missed it,” she says, “just as soon as we set foot into the train, the doors closed, and it left the station.” Bitterly she adds, “ In hindsight, I wish we had missed that train.”

The Jagdale family was never supposed to be in Pahalgam that day. Asawari explains that Baisaran Valley was actually intended to be the last destination of their trip to Kashmir; however, due to a landslide delaying traffic on the route to Srinagar, the family had to reschedule their itinerary. 

Asawari remembers clearly what happened on 22 April. She recalls enjoying the family time and taking a lot of pictures. She particularly remembers an interaction with a local photographer, “We had to haggle with the photographer as he was demanding Rs. 20,000 for taking our pictures. My father got it down to Rs. 5000. The photographer was in a rush to leave,” she explains that the localite repeatedly kept insisting “dedo dedo jaldi”, and immediately left once he received the money. “Now I find myself thinking, he must have known what was going to happen.” 

Within a few seconds of Santosh Jagdale paying the money, gunshots were fired a distance away. Confused, Asawari asked the local photographer what the commotion was about. She recalls him eerily saying, “Jab sher jungle se bahar aata hai, toh yeh awaz aati hai” (when the tiger leaves its den, this is the roar that follows). 

Confused and not able to make sense of the strange warning from the local, she assumed that a wild animal was being chased out by locals.

It was when the family was sitting behind their tent that two other couples joined them in hiding and told them that terrorists were attacking the site that the fear began to settle. 

“When we heard that it was a terrorist attack. We thought we were all going to die. Because we have seen and heard of terrorist attacks before where everyone dies, there is no survivor.”

Asawari recounts a man wearing a local police uniform and an army mask standing with an AK-47 rifle in front of the opposite tent. “I thought, judging by his outfit, he was here to protect us.” 

Unfortunately, there was no form of security positioned at the site. The Jagdale family confirms that not one protection officer, whether from the Army, police or even a basic security guard, was present. 

“He shot two people in front of our eyes, and that's when we realised the truth: he was going to kill us, ” Asawari said. She recalls her father asking her not to worry, reassuring his family that he was there with them. 

With tears in her mother’s eyes, Asawari narrated that her mother was held at gunpoint while her father was asked to stand up. The militant made him take off his cap. She says, “The militant claimed that we (Indians) have ruined the reputation of Muslims and have become Modi-Bhakts. He alleged that misinformed videos of Muslim violence are made viral by us. He then asked my father whether he was Hindu or Muslim, and to recite the Kalma.”

“Before my father could finish his sentence”, pointing to the top of her head, she said, “the militant shot a burst of three to four rounds directly into his skull.”

The Jagdale family was not able to take in what had just happened before their eyes as their father fell to the ground, when another couple faced the same fate. Aswari and her mother recall the brutality of killing as they witnessed not just her own father being shot, but also saw how another man was shot with such intensity that his eye popped out of his socket, and another whose brain was exposed to them. Aswari remembers being covered in flesh and blood.

“This is what happened that day right in front of us”, she says, “How are we supposed to forget about this?  When we die, we will carry this with us. We live with this every day and will continue to live with it.”

Both mother and daughter were shaken after experiencing the tragic loss. Now, one year later, Asawari shares that while they did feel scared at the time, emotions of hate have built up in the duo.

She says, “The show of secularism that is shown to the nation does not work. It is a myth in these regions. Those fanatics have been brainwashed to operate in such a way that is violent towards us. This is the truth.” 

However, the pain and struggles of this Pune family did not end in Kashmir. 

Once they arrived back home, they were swarmed by media and given political attention to their needs as local politicians came to pay their respects. Here, upon seeing that Asawari holds an MBA and was preparing for a Diploma in Labour Laws, the state government promised the daughter of the breadwinner of the family a government job.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, while meeting with the family, called Asawari his ‘beti’, promising her a government job. The Deputy Chief Minister met with the family and guaranteed the same. 

Pragati had trust in the government, “people would ask me to follow up on the status of the job, but I was sure that after calling me ‘bhen’ and my daughter ‘beti’ the government would fulfil their promise on their own.”

What followed in the next eleven and a half months to come was an endless chase from one politician’s personal assistant to another, with no results. The mother-daughter recall feeling extremely frustrated by this behaviour. 

Pragati recalls,” One time after this whole craze of running around for nothing, we came back, and both of us started crying, holding my husband's picture. In that moment, he had left us here like beggars; we were having to beg the government to act on their own promise, even despite no fault of our own, when in fact our family member was killed on Indian soil.”

Asawari remembers the long waits, “We sat for three to four hours outside a politician's house just to meet them for one minute and were not even offered water.” Frustrated, she adds, “This is the treatment we get as the victim's family after they have gone ahead in front of the media and given a promise that we didn’t even ask for, and after all that, they are treating us like that. “

“It was the worst day of my life- I felt if my father was still there, I would have never had to talk to these people.” 

After 11 and a half months, in late March, with the help of Rajya Sabha representative Medha Kulkarni, Asawari received her job letter as a level two administrative officer at PMC. 

Yet, the timing of Asawari finally receiving the job remains curious. Pragati speculates, “I think the government knew that at the first anniversary, everyone, including the press, would inquire into our condition, especially since we were the only family out of the 26 that was promised a government job.”

She adds, “I knew right before the one year that this would get resolved or they would give some updated, otherwise they would have had to be answerable to the public for the inaction. Nonetheless, we cannot be sure of the reason.” 

While this was a point of contention between the Jagdale family and the government, they remain largely grateful for the Operations conducted by the nation. 

On 7 May, when Operation Sindoor was launched, Pragati felt reassured that indeed the government and the people of India were standing behind the families that suffered such a loss. While the family watched the operation unfold over the next few days, their emotions were mixed: “We were happy that India was striking the militants; however, at the same time, we were worried and held in our prayers that none of our men and women in the army would lose their lives to compensate for the loss.” 

However, true justice and satisfaction came for the family in the form of Operation Mahadev, where three of the militants behind the Pahalgam attacks were killed.

Asawari says, “The way the militants were killed was my satisfaction. I swear, in none of the interviews or during Sindoor did I cry, but then Mahadev happened, and I was crying here sitting on the sofa. Happy that finally those three b*****ds who killed my father were killed brutally. “

Pragati claims that on that night, she was finally able to sleep peacefully. For three months, she did not have restful sleep, kept up by regrets and thoughts:  why did I live, why didn't I hold his hand, why didn't I stand in front of him?

“We were satisfied and sad. Happy knowing no one else will be killed in the hands of those militants, but sad because despite killing them, it doesn't bring back my husband,” she says, “No matter what the government does, that emptiness in my house cannot be filled”.

With a smile, Pragati is still able to recollect her fond memories of her husband. Santosh Jagdale used to sing well and play the harmonium and tabla. Pragati used to request him to sing certain songs for her. She narrates how Santosh loved to entertain; he would act and mimic actors and people from their lives. Pragati claims that she has not been able to laugh the way her husband used to make her laugh, since that day in April. She remembers him as a happy person who used to share that happiness with others. 

“He was a foodie, I used to call him every day and ask what I should cook for dinner, he used to say, whatever you like, you make. Yet I would call him every day and ask. I would fondly make tea for him multiple times during the day and sit with him and drink tea.” 

Now, Pragati prepares the morning meal with a cup of tea for her husband every day and places it before the pooja they have set out for him in their living room.

In tears, she says, “Our family is broken. Now it's just us two left. With him, all my happiness has left. I keep calling out to him to come back. I feel like he is still here. I tell god, if I have to marry in the next life,, I’d like to get married to him again”. She says, “My world has stopped.” 

Asawari too cherishes the many good memories with her father. 

As she continues to tell her and her father’s life story to the nation, Asawari is still left with many unanswered questions: why were locals supporting the militants, why was there no security, were they busy protecting something else or some VIPS? She asks, “What about us, the common people, aren’t we also human beings, who will be our security?.

“Our story must not be forgotten, that is why I continue to talk to the press even when it is sometimes painful to have that day relive that day”, she asserts. 

She warns of the “myth of secularism” in regions where these ideals “don’t work in reality”. Since our childhood, there has been a message of coexistence and secularism in the national anthem or what we are taught in schools, but reality is far different from the books,” says Asawari. 

She adds, “We say terrorism is not religious, but why is it that all terrorists are from the same religion? They asked us about our religion and killed us.” 

As the nation momentarily looks back at the horrors of Pahalgam, it must be remembered that these hard realities continue to exist and affect the lives of families in irreparable ways. While the headlines change and the world moves on, time stands still at the Jagdale house.