Nagpur: A year may have passed since the brutal Pahalgam terror attack shook the nation, but for survivors from Nagpur, time has done little to heal the invisible wounds. The echoes of gunfire, the chaos of fleeing crowds, and the desperate fight for survival remain painfully alive, resurfacing in nightmares, silence, and unspoken fear.
April 22, 2025, is not just a date for these families, it is a scar etched into memory.
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For Simran Roopchandani, the trauma is relentless. The sound of bullets still jolts her awake at night. What began as a routine tourist halt turned into a life-and-death ordeal within seconds. Her husband, Tilak Roopchandani, recalls how a simple decision to move away from a kiosk proved to be the difference between life and death.
“Within moments, gunfire erupted. Bullets were hitting the very place we had just left,” he said.
Panic consumed the area. In a desperate attempt to escape, the family ran downhill through rugged terrain. During the chaos, Simran suffered a severe leg fracture. Bleeding and in excruciating pain, she had no option but to keep moving. What followed was nothing short of extraordinary, Tilak and their teenage son, Garv Roopchandani, carried her on their shoulders across nearly seven kilometres of forest.
Even as bullets rang out in the distance, the family clung to each other. When Simran urged her son to run and save himself, his response cut through the chaos: “We leave together, or we don’t leave at all.”
They survived, but survival came at a heavy cost. Simran, who underwent a major surgery involving metal rods to stabilise multiple fractures, is now preparing for yet another operation. The family avoids revisiting that day. “It takes immense strength even to speak about it,” Tilak admits.
Across Nagpur, similar stories echo the same haunting truth.
Sixty-year-old Rajendra Kawale and his family were just minutes away from the attack zone when fate intervened. A brief halt to buy dry fruits delayed their journey, a delay that likely saved their lives.
“Our driver sensed danger and immediately turned the vehicle around. Within minutes, everything turned into a war zone,” Kawale recalled.
Their escape, however, was far from over. With highways under restrictions and fear gripping the region, the family endured an exhausting 18-hour journey to reach Jammu. “My grandchildren were terrified. My family was trembling. We survived by sheer luck,” he said.
For Pruthviraj Waghmare, the trauma carries an added weight of uncertainty and grief. His family had descended from Baisaran barely half an hour before the attack. The porter who had safely carried his daughter uphill returned to the site, and never came back.
“That thought still haunts me,” Waghmare said quietly. The psychological impact has been so severe that his family now refuses to travel to northern regions altogether.
Others recount equally distressing experiences. Raj Dekate spent over 35 hours stranded near Srinagar, without food or basic facilities, battling exhaustion and fear. A separate group of 15 tourists from Nagpur, including Satish Ingle, found themselves trapped in a rapidly deteriorating situation. Having visited Baisaran Valley just a day earlier, they were forced to abort their trip as panic spread.
With hotels overflowing and movement heavily restricted, their search for safety turned into a race against time. Their driver’s attempt to relocate them was halted by security forces, forcing the group to take shelter at a petrol pump and later a nearby temple. In a moment of humanity amid fear, local residents stepped forward, offering food, rest, and medical assistance.
Today, while tourism in Kashmir has resumed and normalcy appears to have returned on the surface, for these survivors, the past refuses to fade.
Their stories are not just accounts of survival, they are testimonies of fear, resilience, and the long, silent aftermath of terror. Long after headlines have moved on, these families continue to live with the memories of a day when life changed forever.
