As India's cricket team gears up to face Pakistan in the Asia Cup, the grieving families of those killed in the horrific Pahalgam terror attack have voiced their anguish, calling on the players to boycott the game.
The pain of the Bhavnagar family, which lost two of its members in the April 22 attack, came out strongly against the scheduled match.
"The tears of our eyes have not even dried, and the match with Pakistan?" questioned Kiranben, who lost her husband, Yatish Sudhirbhai Parmar and 17-year-old son, Smit Yatishbhai Parmar, in the massacre.
The match is set to be played just 146 days after the bloodshed, an event that continues to cast a foreboding shadow.
The Pahalgam tragedy, which claimed 26 innocent lives in the Baisaran Valley, remains etched in public memory as one of the darkest acts of terror in recent years.
Four heavily armed terrorists of The Resistance Front, a Lashkar-e-Taiba offshoot, executed the killings after confirming the religion of the victims.
The Indian government responded with a series of diplomatic measures against Pakistan, while the Armed Forces launched retaliatory strikes under Operation Sindoor -- a reminder of India's resolve not to bow before terror.
The family stressed that the country should unite against the BCCI's call to continue the India vs Pakistan match, just as it was done following the attack.
Against this backdrop, families of victims and martyrs say a cricket match with Pakistan feels "insignificant, even insensitive".
Speaking to IANS, Kiranben recalled the horror and made an emotional appeal to the players: "The tears in our eyes have not dried yet, and they are playing the match. It is painful to even listen to people talk about it, let alone see them play. And then our soldiers also get martyred. There should not be any relationship with the terror state of Pakistan. The country should be united against terrorism."
Her younger son, Savan Parmar, echoed the anger, saying, "So many people lost their lives in the Pahalgam attack, and in Operation Sindoor, our soldiers were also martyred. When we found out that a match between India and Pakistan was happening, we felt very upset and angered."
"PM Modi had said that we have ended all ties with Pakistan, so why are we still playing this game? We are still grieving. What is the need to play this game?" he questioned.
Yatishbhai Parmar, 45, originally from Palitana village in Bhavnagar district and settled in Kaliabid, Bhavnagar, ran a hair salon in the area.
His son Smit was a Class 11 student. Both were shot dead in the Pahalgam attack, leaving behind a devastated family and a grieving community.
For these families, the wounds remain raw, and the idea of a cricket contest with Pakistan only deepens their anguish.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
