New Delhi: A young man from Jalna city in Maharashtra, who recently returned from Kashmir, has claimed that one of the suspected attackers in the Pahalgam terror case spoke to him a day before the carnage.

“Hindu hokya. You don’t look like you are from Kashmir,” said Adarsh Raut, recalling his interaction with a man at a food stall in the Baisaran Valley on April 21.

Days after the massacre of tourists, security agencies released sketches of three suspected attackers, and one of them matched the person who had spoken to him, Raut told the media on Tuesday.

According to Raut, he had gone horse riding in Pahalgam on April 21 and had stopped at a “Maggi stall” for food when a man approached him and asked him if he was a Hindu. He also told Raut that he did not look like a Kashmiri.

“The suspect then turned to his companion and said, ‘There’s less crowd today,” said Raut.

The Jalna resident said he found the conversation a bit disturbing but did not grasp the full implication of it until the following day, when terrorists killed over two dozen tourists in cold blood in the same area.

“After I saw the sketches released by the NIA (National Investigation Agency), I connected the dots,” he claimed.

Raut said he has emailed the NIA a detailed account of his experience in Kashmir.