A National Investigation Agency (NIA) team on Saturday questioned the wife and son of Prasant Kumar Satpathy, who was killed in the Pahalgam terror attack, to piece together the sequence of events leading to the carnage.

A three-member NIA team arrived around 10am at Ishani village in Balasore district and spent nearly four hours speaking to Prasant’s wife Priyadarshini and their eight-year-old son Tanuj. Officials said the focus was largely on Priyadarshini as she witnessed the attack from close quarters.

Sources said the investigators sought a detailed account of the situation at Baisaran Valley, where the attack took place after the family alighted from a ropeway ride. Prasant was shot dead barely 20 metres away from his wife and son.

Sushant Satpathy, elder brother of the deceased, told The Telegraph: “The NIA team spoke to Priyadarshini about what she saw during the attack. We were not allowed inside during the questioning. Since it concerns national security, we are fully
cooperating.”

Priyadarshini, still visibly traumatised, said: “They measured my son’s height and asked me several questions about the environment there, and how everything happened. Though I am mentally shattered, I answered their queries as best I could.”

She also recounted how the terrorists unleashed terror without giving anyone a chance to react.

Prasant, 41, an accountant at the Central Institute of Plastics Engineering and Technology (CIPET) in Bhubaneswar, had travelled to Jammu and Kashmir with his wife and son on April 19 for a four-day holiday under the Leave Travel Concession (LTC) scheme. They were scheduled to return on Wednesday but were caught in the deadly attack on Tuesday.

The NIA is now working to piece together survivor accounts to understand the circumstances of the ambush better.