Jammu and Kashmir: Police Intensify Searches, Tighten Security After Terrorists Kill Civilians In Valley

This is the third attack on workers from outside Jammu and Kashmir in less than 24 hours and is the latest in a series of shootings targeting civilians in recent weeks.

Srinagar: The authorities in Jammu and Kashmir have now further tightened the security and intensified searches across the valley, days after the series of killings launched by terrorists against the non-locals. According to the reports, the mobile internet services in parts of Srinagar’s old city and south Kashmir districts have been reduced. To recall, these are the areas where the attacks were reported lately.

“These types of attacks obviously attract a greater security response. We have intensified the measures in type and number wherever we thought necessary,” an official, who did not wish to be named, said to Hindustan Times.

Multiple checkpoints and roadblocks have been erected across Srinagar. The number of bulletproof mobile bunker vehicles deployed at sensitive places has also been increased and the high-tech CCTV surveillance enhanced. Women paramilitary forces have also been deployed in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk for searches.

On Sunday, terrorists shot dead two more migrant labourers and injured another on October 17 in Kulgam district of south Kashmir, prompting the police to direct that all migrant labourers in the Valley be brought to nearest security camps “immediately” for safety, officials said.

This is the third attack on workers from outside Jammu and Kashmir in less than 24 hours and is the latest in a series of shootings targeting civilians in recent weeks. A street vendor from Bihar and a carpenter from Uttar Pradesh were shot dead by the ultras on October 16.

“Terrorists fired indiscriminately upon #NonLocal labourers at Wanpoh area of #Kulgam. In this #terror incident, 02 non-locals were killed and 01 injured,” Kashmir zone Police said on its Twitter handle.

“The painful incidents of killing of civilians allegedly by the terrorists are a serious threat to the democratic fibre of the country and people’s right to life, liberty, equality and dignity,” the National Human Rights Commission observed.

According to officials, the militants entered the rented accommodation of the labourers and fired on them indiscriminately.

A message flashed to all district police in the Valley said, “All non-local labourers in your respective jurisdiction should be brought to the nearest police or central paramilitary force or army establishment just now.”

“The matter is most urgent,” the message to the 10 districts in the Valley said. The terror attack drew strong condemnation from political parties across the spectrum.