When the news broke of the bloody attack in Kashmir’s popular rolling valleys of Pahalgam, in which militant gunmen shot dead 25 tourists and a guide, Ahmad felt sickened.
In a region so familiar with bloodshed and the loss of innocent lives, the gut-wrenching stories that emerged – of newlyweds being killed, of victims singled out and targeted for their religion – brought back his own memories of grief and loss growing up in Kashmir.