Migrant workers in Kashmir moved to secure locations, hundreds flee

SRINAGAR, INDIA, OCT 18 (REUTERS)- Indian authorities have moved thousands of migrant workers in Kashmir to safer locations overnight, while hundreds have fled the Himalayan valley after a wave of targeted killings, two security officials said on Monday.

Suspected militants have killed eleven civilians, including five migrant workers, in Kashmir since early October despite a widespread security crackdown in the heavily militarised region.

While the trigger for the latest wave of attacks was not immediately clear, Kashmir has been the site of armed insurgency against New Delhi for decades. Kashmir is claimed in full by India and Pakistan but ruled in parts by both.

“We moved thousands of workers to secure places and are facilitating their return home,” a senior police official told Reuters, declining to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media. In other areas, security forces had intensified patrolling to prevent any militant activity, the official added.

A government spokesman in Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar declined to comment on the movement of migrant workers. The decision to move workers came after an attack on migrant labourers from Bihar on Sunday. Police said that militants barged into a rented room in Kashmir’s Kulgam district and fired at them, leaving two dead and one wounded.