The massacre of tourists visiting Pahalgam by Islamic terrorists has shocked the country. Keralites in general, and Swayamsevaks in particular, are deeply aggrieved as the news came in from Pahalgam that Ramachandran, a senior Swayamsevak from Edappally, Kochi, was shot dead by Pakistan-sponsored Islamic terrorists on 21 April. Just like Karnataka’s Manjunath Rao, who was killed in the very presence of his wife Pallavi, Ramachandran was killed in his daughter’s presence. His wife was sitting in the car as she was not feeling well.
He had been a Swayamsevak since 1977. He was a former Mukhya Shikshak of the Edappally Shakha in Kochi Mahanagar Zilla. He had contested the district council election in 1991 as a BJP candidate. Ramachandran was the cousin of Dr N.C. Induchoodan, a senior Sangh worker and retired Forest Conservator.
Just like in the case of Manjunath, the terrorists killed Ramachandran in the presence of his wife and daughter. They asked his name to ascertain his religion. Again, they asked him to recite Quranic verses. He replied that he did not know them, as he was a Hindu. Then, according to reports, the terrorists asked him to undress to make sure he was not a Muslim, before killing him. The above-mentioned modus operandi is truly shocking.
Another disturbing part of the story concerns the killer’s statement after killing Manjunath. When Pallavi asked them to kill her as well, since they had killed her husband, they told her that they were sparing her so she could ‘go and tell Modi’.
In a brutal terror attack on April 22, at least 26 people, including two foreigners, were killed in Baisaran meadow, Jammu and Kashmir — a popular tourist spot known as “Mini Switzerland.” The attackers, allegedly from The Resistance Front (a Lashkar-e-Taiba proxy), wore military uniforms and used automatic weapons. They reportedly targeted Hindus by checking ID cards before shooting them at point-blank range, causing widespread panic and horror among tourists.
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