The killings have spread panic among non-local labourers, at the time when most of them would work in apple orchards and as construction workers in the Valley
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On Monday, hundreds of labourers headed for the railway station at Srinagar’s Nowgam to board trains for their hometowns. This, after Sunday witnessed the third attack on non-locals in Kashmir in two days. A street vendor from Bihar was previously killed in the Eidgah area of Srinagar on Saturday evening. Image courtesy: Quratulain Rehbar
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In Srinagar, non-local labourers spent the entire day, without food, waiting for a train to take them home. Some said they hadn’t slept all night after hearing about the killing of two more non-local labourers, who were shot dead in the evening hours of Sunday, in Kulgam. Image courtesy: Quratulain Rehbar
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Fearing they could be next, workers in the Union Territory on Monday jumped onto whatever mode of transport was available and spent nights at in camps set up by security forces or in police stations. Quratulain Rehbar
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Most of those leaving said they hoped to be back. This is not the first time that migrant workers have found themselves in the crosshairs of terrorists. In October 2019, soon after the imposition of governor’s rule in Jammu and Kashmir, six migrant workers were killed in South Kashmir. At that time too, some migrant workers left the Valley fearing for their lives, only to return the following season. Quratulain Rehbar

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