Three from Bengal killed in Pahalgam terror attack

Kolkata, April 23 (IANS) Three residents of West Bengal were among those killed in a brutal terror attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir. Two of the deceased were central government officials.

One of the victims was Manish Ranjan Mishra, originally from Jhalda in West Bengal’s Purulia district. An officer with the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Mishra was recently transferred to Hyderabad from Ranchi. He had travelled to Pahalgam with his wife, son, and daughter as part of a holiday trip that included a planned visit to the Vaishno Devi shrine. Family members in Jhalda confirmed that he left Hyderabad on April 15 for the vacation.

The second victim, Sameer Guha, was also a central government employee and a resident of Sakher Bazar in Behala, on the southern outskirts of Kolkata. He was on holiday in Kashmir with his wife, Shobori, and was scheduled to return to Kolkata on Wednesday. His wife told the media that her husband was among those deliberately targeted by the masked attacker.

The third victim, Bitan Adhikari, hailed from the Patuli area of south Kolkata. A resident of Florida, USA, where he lived with his wife, Sohini, and son Hridan, Adhikari was visiting India with his family. They arrived in Kolkata on April 8 and left for Kashmir on April 16. The family had planned to return to Kolkata next week. Following Adhikari’s death in the attack, his wife and son are now returning earlier than planned.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee expressed deep sorrow over the incident. “My heart goes out to the families of the victims of the devastating terrorist attack on the tourists in Jammu and Kashmir today,” she said in a statement issued on Tuesday evening.

However, the statement drew sharp criticism from the BJP IT Cell head and the party’s Central Observer for West Bengal, Amit Malviya, who accused the Chief Minister of ignoring issues in her own state. “While what happened in Kashmir is undeniably tragic, the situation in West Bengal is equally, if not more, alarming,” Malviya said.

He accused Banerjee of “engineering a demographic shift” for political gain and urged her to visit Murshidabad to witness the alleged unrest firsthand.

--IANS

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