By Fayaz Bukhari
SRINAGAR (Reuters) – At least six migrant workers and a doctor were shot dead in India’s Kashmir region on Sunday night when militants opened fire near a tunnel construction site, officials said, days after a new government was formed in the territory.
An opposition alliance took power in the region this month after winning its first polls in a decade, and the first since its special status was revoked and it was split into two federally administered territories – Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
The victims of Sunday’s attack were involved in the construction of tunnels meant to provide all-weather connectivity to the militarily strategic Ladakh region, which shares a border with China and Pakistan.
“At least two armed militants barged into the mess of the private construction company and fired at workers who were dining at the time of the attack,” said a senior police officer who did not want to be named.
Six workers and a doctor were killed and five others were injured in the attack, he said.
Non-Kashmiri migrant workers employed in orchards, paddy fields and construction sites in Kashmir have previously also been targeted by militant groups aiming to drive them away.
India’s Interior Minister Amit Shah termed the attack a “despicable act of cowardice”.
“Those involved in this heinous act will not be spared and will face the harshest response from our security forces,” he said in a post on X.
Kashmir is claimed in full but ruled in part by both India and Pakistan, and militants in the portion under India’s control have for decades fought security forces, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people.
In another incident of violence last week, a bullet-riddled body of a labourer from the eastern state of Bihar had been recovered from Kashmir’s Shopian region.
At least nine soldiers were killed in two separate attacks by suspected militants in July, barely a month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took charge for a third consecutive term.
(Writing by Sakshi Dayal; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
