Shailesh Kalthia, a resident of Surat’s Varachha area, was brutally gunned down by jihadi terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir’s Pahalgam during a barbaric religious profiling attack on April 22. Eyewitness accounts from his son, Naksh Kalthia, paint a horrifying picture of targeted communal execution.
Kalthia was part of a family trip to the picturesque “Mini Switzerland” point in Pahalgam when gunfire suddenly erupted. What followed, as recounted by his grieving wife and son, was not a random act of violence—but a cold, calculated massacre based on religious identity.
“They ordered Hindus to one side and Muslims to the other”, Recounting the horrifying moments before her husband’s execution, Sheetal Kalthia, Shailesh’s widow, said: “We ran to hide once we heard the gunshots, but a boundary covered the entire area—there was nowhere to escape. Suddenly, a terrorist was standing in front of us with a long gun that had a camera mounted on top. He ordered the Hindus to get on one side and the Muslims on the other.”
#WATCH | Surat, Gujarat | Shailesh Kalthia, a native of Varachha area of Surat city, was killed in the Pahalgam terror attack on 22 April.
His wife, Sheetal Kalthia, says, "… We ran to hide once we heard gunshots, but a boundary covered the whole area, so there was no place… pic.twitter.com/1K1Gj5MLvW
— ANI (@ANI) April 24, 2025
Her words paint a chilling picture of deliberate religious profiling, a method often used by Pakistan-backed Islamist groups.
“When the terrorist said ‘kalam’ to each person, the Muslims responded by saying ‘Muslim’… Then he separated the Hindu men and shot all of them. He stood there, watching them die, waiting for them to stop moving. He shot 6–7 men in front of us. At such close range, none of them could survive beyond 2–3 minutes.”
“My husband’s head was on my lap, and I could do nothing,” Sheetal said through tears.
Naksh Kalthia, Shailesh’s son, added further layers of horror to the story.
“We saw two terrorists. One of them was fair, with a beard, and had a camera tied to his head. They asked the men to recite the ‘Kalma’ three times. Those who couldn’t were shot. They didn’t let my father speak. They didn’t say anything to my mother or the women—they spared them and the children.”
This horrific method of selection and execution based on religious identity has reignited painful memories of past genocides and massacres where religion was used as a license to kill. Perhaps the most disturbing part of this story, apart from the cold-blooded executions, was the near-total absence of state security forces.
She added, poignantly, “We did not experience any Hindu-Muslim conflict in Kashmir. There is no such environment here. I feel it is only the Pakistanis who talk of the Hindu-Muslim divide to cause conflict. But the government must ensure safety in such places—or not allow people to enter at all.”
