The newly married Indian Navy officer and his wife left for their honeymoon in Jammu and Kashmir, which met with a devastating end to the new chapter of their married life. 26-year-old Lieutenant Vinay Narwal from Haryana's Karnal district married Himanshi Narwal on April 16. After the reception, they left for Kashmir on Monday, April 21. Before the attack, they clicked pictures together in the meadows of Baisaran near Pahalgam, unaware of the tragedy they were about to face.
Suddenly, on Tuesday afternoon, April 22, gunshots were heard from the meadow, where a group of terrorists opened fire at tourists, killing 28 people, including Narwal. He was posted in Kerala's Kochi and had joined the Indian Navy in 2023. He was shot at point-blank range in the head, and the blood spread onto his wife Himanshi's face. "We were having 'bhelpuri' when a man came and shot my husband," she said in a video which went viral after the attack.
Today, when the Navy officer's body was brought to his residence in Delhi in a coffin for the final rites, Himanshi broke down in tears. She could not control herself despite trying to remain steady. She hugged her husband's coffin, sobbing inconsolably. "I pray that his soul rests in peace... We will make him proud in every way," she said.
"It is because of him that the world is still surviving. And we should all be proud of him in every way... in every way," she said while crying and bowing to the coffin. Family members picked her up, and she placed the officer's peaked cap atop it to pay him respect. Then she stood ramrod straight and gave him a farewell salute, shouting "Jai Hind" as the officer's colleagues from the Navy and others also saluted, repeating "Jai Hind."
The Pahalgam terror attack has been one of the biggest terror attacks since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. Following the terror attack, security forces launched search operations on Wednesday to track down the terrorists responsible.