I went to the vigil that occurred in our Hastings Park yesterday (4/30/25) to mourn the lives lost in the recent terrorist attack in a picturesque tourist destination in Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22nd. Residents of Lexington and neighboring towns gathered at the park to mourn the departed souls. This attack targeted Hindu tourists — specifically male members of their families. An offshoot of the Islamist terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba claimed responsibility. At least 26 people were killed.
I was introduced to a group of Kashmiri Hindu Americans at the vigil. One of the members was Mr. Ajay Kalloo, a Lexington resident. Mr. Kalloo kindly shared a few words with me. He was born and raised in Kashmir. After high school, he left to study engineering, and upon returning to Kashmir, he did not have any future job prospects. His parents encouraged him to go to a different state for a suitable job. Kalloo said that things became really dangerous for the Kashmiri Hindu population around 1989. Mosques announced on the loudspeakers after prayers that Hindus must leave Kashmir, he said. Overnight, families started to leave the valley in large numbers. Their houses were completely looted, and many were never able to return to reclaim their properties and valuables. Mr. Kalloo’s family was one of those. He never went back to Kashmir after that, and his children are not interested in visiting either. For them, everything is lost; that is what Mr. Kalloo conveyed to me.
I also had a chance to meet another gentleman who used to live in Lexington and now lives in Billerica. His name is Mr. Anupam Wali. Mr. Wali had a similar story to Mr. Kalloo. He is also a Kashmiri Hindu. He reminisced about his grandmother and the trauma that she went through after losing everything that she had in Kashmir. Mr. Wali told me about how he wanted to give back to the Hindu community there and kept close ties with different organizations there to educate people, because according to him, even though they lost everything, education was the only asset that no one could take from them.
Thank you for reporting this, Mamata. We all need to be aware and educate ourselves on what the truth is ourselves and then our children and the larger community. We should also write to our lawmakers so that they are made aware as well. CoHNA, a grassroots advocacy organization representing the Hindu community of North America, has created this page that has information about what happened and the history behind it: https://cohna.org/terror-attack-in-pahalgam/.