Nine people lost their lives in the Reasi terror attack on Sunday. Among the victims, four were members of a single family, including a two-year-old boy, who died when their bus fell into a gorge after being fired upon by terrorists. Two cousins from Balrampur in Uttar Pradesh were also among the deceased.
The 53-seater bus was traveling from the Shiv Khori temple to Katra when it veered off the road after the gunfire and plunged into a deep gorge near Teryath village in the Poni area.
Rajendra Saini (42), a cloth merchant from Jaipur, his wife Mamta (40), their relative Pooja Saini (30), and her two-year-old son Levansh alias Titu were among the victims.
Om Prakash Saini, Pooja’s father, told The Indian Express that Rajendra and Mamta’s children have not yet been informed of their parents’ deaths. Rajendra and Mamta were residents of Chomu town in Jaipur district, while Pooja was from Ajmera ki Dhani in the Harmada area on Chomu road.
The family, including Pooja’s husband Pavan, had departed for Jaipur to visit Vaishno Devi on June 7. Pooja’s father mentioned that he was informed by a relative at 9:15 pm on Sunday about the terrorist attack on the bus they were traveling in. Pavan was injured but has since been discharged from the hospital.
The bodies of the four victims arrived in Jaipur by train on Tuesday, as reported by PTI. They arrived on the Pooja Express and were taken to Harmada and Chomu by their family members and relatives.
The two deceased from Balrampur in Uttar Pradesh were identified as Ruby and her maternal cousin Anurag Verma, according to the PTI report.
An IE report stated that Ruby was pursuing her graduation and worked as a teacher in a private school. She and her cousin Anurag were part of a 13-member group from Balrampur that went to offer prayers at the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in Katra. Her mother Vimla Devi and elder sister Maina Verma, who were also with them, were injured in the attack.
Balrampur District Magistrate Arvind Singh mentioned that 12 devotees from the district had gone on a pilgrimage to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in Jammu.