Spike in targeted killings in Kashmir as two more migrant workers dead

Killings come two days after Kashmiri Hindu man was fatally shot outside his house in the same district

An Indian paramilitary trooper frisks a man’s bag during a random search along a street in Srinagar on 18 October 2022 (AFP via Getty Images)

Two Indian laborers were murdered in a targeted killing in Kashmir after militants hurled a grenade at the homes of non-locals working in the India-administered region of the disputed territory.

Police on Tuesday arrested a suspect whom it identified as a “hybrid terrorist” – a term used by Indian authorities for alleged militants who return to their normal lives after carrying out terror attacks and are devoid of police records.

The grenade was launched on the rented dwelling of two workers, identified as Monish Kumar and Ram Sagar, in the southern Shopian district on Monday night. The victims, originally from the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, were taken to hospital where they succumbed to their injuries.

Police cordoned off the area before nabbing the suspect, identified by police as Imran Bashin Ganie from the Harmen area.

The incident comes two days after a Kashmiri Hindu man, Puran Krishan Bhat, was fatally shot outside his house in the same district, making him the seventh Kashmiri Pandit – minority Hindus from the area – to be fatally shot since 2020.

The spate of targeted killings are giving rise to concerns as Narendra Modi’s government had stripped contested Jammu and Kashmir of its statehood and abrogated Article 370, a provision in India’s constitution that granted the area special status, in 2019.

The federal government argued that the law had “encouraged separatism, terrorism”.

Earlier in March this year, federal home minister and Mr Modi’s aide Amit Shah claimed the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance at the centre had achieved a “decisive control over terrorism”.

The former state’s ex-chief minister Farooq Abdullah slammed the tall claims made by the government and demanded to know “why the killings have not stopped” even after the Muslim-majority region was ripped of its status and divided into three federally governed Union territories.

“This will never stop. Until justice is served, this will never stop,” he said.

“Earlier they said such killings were happening due to Article 370, but it has been abrogated now, so why such killings haven’t stopped? Who is responsible?” Mr Abdullah asked.

“If things were better, the innocent Pandit wouldn’t have been killed,” he added.

Political parties in Kashmir also condemned the targeted killings, with National Conference leader Omar Abdullah describing them as “reprehensible”, while another former chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti, accused the central government of having “failed to safeguard Kashmiri Pandits”.