'Where is papa?' A question echoes after the J&K attack

Each time her little boy wakes up from sleep, his voice trembles with the same haunting questions— “Where is papa? Did he go somewhere?”

- 

His mother, Sohini, has no answers. All she can offer are tears as her son’s words slice through the stillness like shattered glass.

The three-and-half-year-old kid’s father Bitan Adhikari was gunned down by terrorists amidst the breathtaking beauty of Pahalgam, Kashmir.

What was meant to be a joyful family holiday turned into a lifelong nightmare.

Adhikari, originally from West Bengal, had settled in Florida with his family a few years ago.

He returned to Kolkata on 8 April to visit relatives and was vacationing in Kashmir with his family at the time of the attack.

“They separated us,” his widow recounted to a news channel, her voice cracking.

“They asked where we were from, then segregated the men, asked their religion, and shot them one by one. My husband was murdered right in front of our child.” she said “How do I explain this to him?”

“[ don’t know how to tell my son that his father is gone forever,” she says, her voice barely a whisper.