Our Bureau
Kolkata
The April 22 terror assault in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, claimed the lives of 26 tourists, including Bitan Adhikary, a 40-year-old engineer who worked for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in the US.
Bitan, a native of West Bengal who lived and worked in Florida, took a summer vacation last month and returned to India to be with his wife, Sohini, 37, and their three-year-old son, Hridaan.
Armed militants approached the family while they were on vacation in the picturesque Baisaran meadows, sometimes referred to as “Mini Switzerland,” and demanded to know their religious affiliation.
Bitan was immediately shot and killed in front of his wife and child, who were unharmed. The Resistance Front (TRF), a front for the Pakistan-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), claimed responsibility for the attack, which was among the worst in the area in recent memory.
The family has been saddened by Bitan’s unexpected death, as he was the only provider for his aging parents. He had worked at Verizon and Cognizant before joining TCS as a Test Manager, and he had been residing in Florida. He was well-known in the tech community for his more than 15 years of UI/API automation and functional testing skills.
Bitan’s elderly father, saddened by the death of his son, said “He wanted to take all of us along. But I told him to go with my daughter-in-law.
Brother of Bitan remembered his last conversation and said, “I spoke to my younger brother this morning. He told me that once he returned from Kashmir, we would plan an extended holiday nearby. We had no idea it would be the last time we would speak.”
Bitan’s parents, who escaped religious strife in Bangladesh in the 1960s, are especially hurt by the incident. Maya Adhikary, Bitan’s mother said: “We never imagined those days of riots would return. Back then, they asked us our religion. Today, they asked his religion. Oh God, the pain in my heart… it would have been better if I had died.”
