FEAR GRIPS KASHMIR VILLAGE AFTER KILLINGS

Residents brace for security crackdown after militants kill 5 non-Kashmiris

LOCALS in the Kashmiri village where five Indian migrant labourers were killed by gunmen last week say they are living in fear of militant groups as well as crackdown by security forces.

The five migrants, from India’s eastern state of West Bengal, were shot dead by militants in southern Kashmir’s Kulgam district on Oct 28, the latest casualties in a conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives over the last three decades.

A sixth migrant, who survived the attack and is recovering in hospital in Kashmir’s capital Srinagar, said the assailants were men who barged into a rented room he and the five others had been living in, above a shop in the village of Kulgam here.

Police said militant groups had targeted migrant labourers, a new tactic aimed at driving away the thousands of non-Kashmiris who work in its orchards, paddy fields and construction sites.

Including the most recent attack, at least 11 people from outside Kashmir have been killed in recent weeks.

But interviews with a dozen villagers said they also feared a heavy-handed response from security services.

“It’s only the forces or militants who have guns here,” said Ghulam Nabi, an elderly man who owns a meat shop on the street where the men were shot.

“Us civilians are not carrying guns, but we are still suffering.”

The lone survivor, Zahoor Din, lying covered with a green sheet on a hospital bed, said he and the other migrant labourers had been preparing to have dinner when the gunmen came in and took them outside.

They were wearing cloaks concealing their weapons, said Din, speaking slowly and with effort, as he readjusted his heavily bandaged arm.

The gunmen made the migrants walk a few hundred metres across the road toward a bakery, and then fired multiple shots at them in the dark, Din said. Their bodies fell on the dirt track.

Din was shot in four places, including the arm and legs, and villagers helped him up upon hearing his cries for help. He did not recognise the assailants.

Dilbag Singh, director-general of police for the Jammu and Kashmir territory, said the militants involved had been identified and would soon be “neutralised”.

The killings were followed by a crackdown by the army and police that locals sais had spooked them.

Army officers arrived shortly and rounded up shopkeepers and residents living near the site, said Nayeema Khatun, a resident.

More than a dozen people had been detained by security forces since the killings, villagers said, adding that some had been freed.

“We are living in fear,” shopkeeper Nabi said, adding that he had been detained for four nights for questioning before being let go on Saturday.