Pahalgam terror attack: NIA team visits residences of Samir, Bitan
The Statesman | 28 April 2025
A three-member team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) visited on Saturday the Kolkata residences of Samir Guha, one of the three people from West Bengal who were killed in the Pahalgam terror attack in Kashmir on 22 April.
The incident claimed the lives of 26 tourists. The third Bengali slain was Manish Ranjan Mishra, a resident of Jhalda in Purulia district.
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The central investigating agency is providing assistance to the Jammu and Kashmir Police in connection with the terror strike in Pahalgam, popularly known as ‘mini Switzerland of India’ for its scenic beauty.
Today, the NIA team visited the Behala residence of Samir, who was a central government employee around 12.30 p.m. and spoke to his bereaved family members for over four hours.
The investigating officials recorded their statements, including what happened during the attack on 22 April, sources said.
The officials could not meet Sohini, the wife of Bitan, another deceased in the terror attack, in the Baishnabghata area, according to sources.
Bitan, a 40-year-old IT professional, was working for a multinational company in Florida, America and had come to Kolkata on 8 April and visited Kashmir on 16 April along with his wife and a three-year-old son Hridan.
“The investigating officials recorded the statements of the family members of Samir and will file reports based on that,” the sources added.
The NIA team will also visit the residence of Bitan Chatterjee and Manish Ranjan in Jhalda soon. Special teams of the NIA have started reaching out to eyewitnesses, including tourists, who survived the deadly attack by terrorists in south Kashmir’s Pahalgam, officials had said on Friday.
Armed with the latest gadgets like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and drones, Jammu and Kashmir Police, Army and paramilitary forces continued their massive combing operations to track down the terrorists in the dense jungles of the Pir Panjal range, overlooking Pahalgam and the Jammu-Srinagar national highway.
Initial investigations into the terror attack indicate that the number of terrorists involved could range from five to seven.
Terrorists opened fire at Baisaran near Kashmir’s Pahalgam town on Tuesday afternoon, killing at least 26 people, mostly tourists, in what is the deadliest attack in the valley since the Pulwama strike in 2019.
A separate team of the NIA on Friday also visited the home of the Pune resident Santaosh Jagdale, who was among those killed by terrorists at Baisaran.
The four-member team of the central agency had arrived at Jagdale’s home in Karvenagar and made enquiries with his family members, the officials said without providing further details.