Poor labourers from different parts of India, earning their livelihood in Kashmir Valley, have once again come on the radar of the terrorists, growing restless with increasing economic activity in the region.
Selective killing of these ‘soft targets’, ahead of the bifurcation of the State into two Union territories on October 31, has also unnerved the security establishment in the region.
While executing these strikes the terrorists zeroed in on their targets carefully and with a sinister design to provoke them to run away from Kashmir valley, bringing economic activity on hold in rural areas of Kashmir valley.
Meanwhile, toll in the kulgam terror incident rose to six as one of the critically injured labourer succumbed to his injuries on Wednesday. The bodies of five other labourers hailing from Murshidabad were sent home from Srinagar airport after completing necessary medico-legal formalities .
So far, no terror outfit has claimed responsibility of the attack. Official sources,however, claimed it could be the handiwork of Hizbul Mujahideen terror outfit as their cadre was actively involved in the region.
Local police officers claimed, "since majority of work force, which hails from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Chhatisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, have been visiting Kashmir valley for past several years they never felt unsafe and ventured inside the interior areas to earn their bread and butter".
On the other hand, careful study of soft targets, killed by terrorists since October 14, clearly indicate the terrorists are picking non-locals deliberately to trigger second round of migration.
Thousands of daily wage labourers had earlier fled different parts of Kashmir valley after the revocation of J&K's special status under Article 370 in the first week of August 2019.Large number of them ran away without even collecting their wages from their employers to ensure their safety.
With gradual improvement in the prevailing security situation as these labourers started returning to kashmir valley, terrorists became restive and searched for soft targets.
First, the terrorists targeted apple growers but when hue and cry was raised in Kashmir valley these terrorists started targeting non-locals and truckers ferrying apple boxes. The change in strategy was adopted to ensure they do not invite wrath of the local populace and their image was not dented.
In all these incidents, the trucks were also set on fire to spread panic among
them.
Due to complete communication lock down, the total number of anti militancy operations had gone down since August 5 but in the last three weeks terrorists have been striking at will and even exposing the tall claims of the security forces related to protecting apple growers and others engaged in packaging of apple crop.
The cycle of violence, which started with the killing of a Rajasthan based truck driver Sharief Khan on October 14,is bound to put pressure on these labourers to return home safely than falling in the hands of these terrorists as 'sitting ducks'
Senior security officers claimed, the terrorists are deliberately choosing their targets to scare away ‘outsiders’ and provoke the troops.
On the other hand, kashmir police Wednesday identified the terrorist responsible for killing truck driver Narayan Dutt, from Katra area in Resi district as Aijaz Malik of Hizbul Mujahideen. According to police, Aijaz was active since 2018. This establishes complicity of Hizbul Mujahideen in the terror crime, police said.
