Anger and anguish roil Gujarat

Surat/Mumbai: Gujarat brimmed over with anger and anguish as the bodies of seven Amarnath pilgrims slain by terrorists in Kashmir arrived here amid angry protests across the state and calls to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for reprisal.

Terrorists sprayed a bus, which mostly had unsuspecting pilgrims from Gujarat, with bullets, killing seven, including six women, and wounding 19 others in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag district on Monday.

A pall of gloom enveloped the airport when an IAF’s Hurcules transport aircraft landed here with the bodies, the wounded, and those who miraculously survived the ambush, amid a high alert in the state.

Though no violence has been reported from anywhere in the state so far, there were angry protests in various cities and towns, with people burning effigies of ‘terror’, and demanding that the Modi government “avenge” the killings and punish Pakistan for the outrage.

Chief minister Vijay Rupani and his deputy Nitin Patel were present at the airport to receive the victims and survivors. Distraught families of those killed stoically fought back tears as the bodies were carried out of the aircraft one by one.

Pallavi Abhayankar, 55, one of the survivors, said when terrorists opened a hail of fire she felt somebody was bursting firecrackers. “I first thought they were bursting firecrackers. It was only a few moments later that I realised the horror as I saw my fellow passengers getting hit by the terrorists’ bullets and slumping,” Abhyankar told PTI in Mumbai.

The homemaker, who also runs music classes, said the bus driver’s presence of mind saved many lives. “Had it not been for the driver, the toll would have been more,” she said.