In yet another targeted attack, a nonmigrant Kashmiri Pandit was shot dead in the Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday.
Officials said militants fired at Poran Krishan Bhat of Chouwdarygund Shopian near his residence. “He was shot while he was in an orchard which is more than half a km from his house,” a security official said. He was immediately shifted to the hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. Soon after the incident, security forces cordoned the area and launched a manhunt to trace the attackers. Militants have this year carried out over a dozen of targeted killings of civilians mostly nonlocals, Kashmiri Pandits, and panchayat members.
The deceased has been identified as Puran Krishan who was attacked near his residence in the Chowdhary Gund area of the south Kashmir district.
Doctors declared him dead after he was shifted to Shopian hospital, officials added. The area has been cordoned off to find the assailants.
Meanwhile, Kashmiri Pandit migrant employees have been protesting in Jammu seeking better security measures and relocation outside the Valley, following the killing of Rahul Bhat inside his office in central Kashmir’s Budgam district on May 12, PTI reported on October 10.
The employees, who are under the Prime Minister’s Special package in the Valley, have been protesting for nearly five months now.
The protest intensified after a recent order was issued by the divisional administration in Kashmir that made bio-metric attendance compulsory for all government employees.
Earlier, the labour department of Kashmir and additional deputy commissioner, Anantnag, had issued orders to stop the salaries of the protesting employees for the month of September, as per the PTI report.
On August 16 this year, militants shot dead a Kashmiri Pandit named Sunil Kumar Bhat and injured another named Pritembar Kumar in the Shopian district. While Bhat died in the hospital, Kumar was being treated, The Indian Express reported. The duo was fired upon at an apple orchard in Chotipora village of Shopian. The assailants had fled.
The Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS), an organization of Pandits who did not leave the Valley in 1990, while the majority left following targeted killings, said the government had “failed” them, and asked members to leave the Valley.