Kolkata, Apr 23 (PTI) Bereaved family members of the two Kolkata men killed in the terror attack near Kashmir’s Pahalgam are waiting for the return of their mortal remains.

Senior minister Firhad Hakim, after visiting the residence of one of the deceased, Samir Guha, at their Behala residence, said that the mortal remains will be brought back to Kolkata at around 8.30 pm on Wednesday.

“I will be there at the airport and all assistance will be provided by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation,” Hakim, who is also the city mayor, said.

Guha of Behala and Bitan Adhikari of Baishnabghata were among the 26 people, mostly tourists, who were killed in the terror attack at Baisaran meadow in south Kashmir on Tuesday.

West Bengal ministers Aroop Biswas and Firhad Hakim visited the residences of Adhikari and Guha respectively on Wednesday morning and spoke to their family members.

Adhikari, who worked in the United States, came home on a holiday and was visiting Kashmir with his wife Sohini and their child, he said.

Biswas said that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has spoken to Sohini over phone and is keeping stock of the situation round the clock.

The distraught family members of Guha, who resided at Sakherbazar in Behala, said that they were awaiting the return of the mortal remains of the deceased.

Another man, Manish Ranjan who hailed from Jhalda in Purulia district of West Bengal, was also killed in the terror attack.

Ranjan was a central government employee and resided in Hyderabad on work, his relatives said.

He was vacationing in Kashmir with his family, they said.

Hakim, after visiting their residence, said that the chief minister was constantly in touch with the family members.

He said that the killings were a dastardly act on the part of the perpetrators.

“Those who carried out the attack in Pulwama were cowards, so are those who killed the tourists in Pahalgam,” he said after meeting the family members of Guha at their Behala residence.

On February 14, 2019, 40 CRPF personnel were killed in a suicide attack in south Kashmir’s Pulwama area.

Hakim said, “I also condemn those due to whose laxity such killings could take place.” He questioned what the Army or central intelligence agencies were doing and whether they did not have any prior information about the attack.

“The Home Minister (Amit Shah) is a flop,” Hakim said, maintaining that tourists were flocking to Kashmir relying on him and his security agencies.

Retorting to Hakim’s accusations, Union Minister of State for Education Sukanta Majumdar said that this is not the time to indulge in politics or a blame game.

“I think the time has come to scrutinise such killings in the name of religion,” he said.

The Union Minister asserted that no one responsible for the killings will be spared. PTI AMR NN