Pune: Pune-based businessman Santosh Jagdale and his family were hiding inside a tent as cries for help and shots of gunfire rang through a tourist hotspot in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam.

The horror began when they heard firing from “people who wore clothes similar to those of local police” descending from a hill, his daughter Asavari recounted. She, her mother Pragati and her father Santosh rushed to a nearby tent, along with other tourists. They assumed the sound of gunfire outside was an exchange between the attackers and security forces. The sound of the attackers got closer as they fired at a nearby tent.

Then came a chilling command “Chaudhary, tu bahar aa jaa (Chaudhary, you come outside). Her father was pulled out of the tent by attackers, and the following exchange included the attackers blaming them for supporting Prime Minister Narendra Modi.