SRINAGAR: Terrorists targeting non-Kashmiris in J&K widened the arc of their carnage on Sunday, shooting dead two more labourers from Bihar and critically injuring a third in south Kashmir’s Kulgam district to take the count of civilian casualties to 11 in a fortnight, including five migrant workers.
The killings came a day after terrorists fatally shot a roadside snack vendor from Bihar in downtown Srinagar and a carpenter from UP in Pulwama within hours of each other.
The victims – Raja Reshi Dev and Joginder Reshi Dev – were inside their rented accommodation at Laran Gangipora Wanpoh in Kulgam with a fellow native of Bihar when the terrorists barged in and opened fire indiscriminately, the police said. Raja and Joginder died where they fell while the third person in the room, identified as Chunchun Reshi Dev, is said to be stable after being treated in an Anantnag hospital.
Migrant workers in other rooms of the rented house were unharmed. A police official quoted one of them as saying that the two deceased were shot six times each.

In a message flashed to the 10 district police headquarters in the Valley late in the night, IGP (Kashmir range) Vijay Kumar 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.”
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar announced compensation of Rs 2 lakh each to the families of the slain workers. He also called J&K lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha, seeking adequate security for scores of migrants from Bihar making a living in the UT as roadside vendors or labourers.”I strongly condemn the despicable terror attack on civilians in Kulgam… Our security forces will give a befitting reply to the terrorists. The J&K government stands by the families in this time of grief,” Sinha said later.
Former CM and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti tweeted, “There are no words strong enough to condemn the repeated barbaric attacks on innocent civilians. My heart goes out to their families because they leave the comforts of their homes to earn a dignified livelihood. Terribly sad.”
The cycle of terror attacks on civilians had started with two killings on October 2, both Kashmiri Muslims. Three days later, prominent Kashmiri Pandit businessman Makhan Lal Bindroo and a pani puri seller from Bihar, Virendra Paswan, were shot and killed by the Pakistan-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba affiliate TRF in separate incidents in Srinagar. On October 7, the terror outfit struck again in a Srinagar school, checking the identity cards of the staff before singling out Kashmiri Sikh principal Supinder Kour and her Kashmiri Pandit colleague Deepak Chand.
Since then, the targets of selective terror attacks have been migrant workers, all barring one from Bihar. The victims on Saturday were pani puri vendor Arbind Kumar Sah and carpenter Sagir Ahmad.
Thirty civilians have been killed in terror attacks across J&K this year, including Akash Mehra, son of the owner of the popular Srinagar eatery Krishna Dhaba. He had been fatally injured by terrorists on February 17.