Since three years 47-year-old Yasmeena Akhter had been preparing for this visit. She wanted to see her three children and her grandchildren in Pakistan. On Sunday, when she finally boarded the Samjhauta Express, Yasmeena did not know this would be her last journey.

Yasmeena was the only Kashmiri passenger among the 67 men, women and children who were killed in the blast that rocked several bogies of the Samjhauta Express.

Five days ago, Yasmeena left her Srinagar home to meet her daughters Shabnum and Sheeba in Pakistan, and her son Nadeem Qureshi, who had traveled to Pakistan, married and settled there. “She was eager to meet her grandchildren,” said Mohammad Aslam Qureshi, her nephew. “But we did not know that she was eager to meet death.”

When the news about the Samjhauta Express blast news broke, there was panic in the Akhter household in the outskirts of Srinagar city.

“When we heard about the blast, we were glued to the television watching every news bulletin impatiently,” Aslam said. “We wanted to know about her. We wanted to know that she is alive.”

The bad news came at 2 pm when Yasmeena’s husband, Mohammad Maqbool Qureshi called home. “He didn’t speak for a while. He was dumb struck,” Aslam said. “We knew there was some bad news.”

Qureshi had accompanied his wife to the railway station, helped her to embark the train and before bidding her goodbye told her that he too would join her in five days.

This wasn’t going to be Yasmeena’s first visit to Pakistan. “She had traveled there many times,” said Mohammad Akbar Malik, her brother. “She was accompanied by her husband. But this time she was alone,” he said.

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