Chhattisgarh worker shot dead, another wounded in first J&K terror attack on migrants in 21 months

Medical personnel shift an injured migrant worker to an ambulance outside the Government Medical College (GMC) Hospital

SRINAGAR: Terrorists shot dead a 24-year-old labourer from Chhattisgarh and critically wounded another from the same state at a brick kiln in south Kashmir’s Kulgam on Friday evening, marking the first fatal attack on migrant workers in J&K since unidentified assailants killed a native of Bihar’s Banka in Shopian district on Oct 18, 2024.IGP (Kashmir) Vidhi Kumar Birdi identified the slain worker as Deepak Ratray. His wounded co-worker, Bhupender (28), has been moved to Government Medical College in Anantnag.The last such terror strike targeting migrant labourers in Kulgam was on Oct 11, 2021, when two men from Bihar, Raja Reshi Dev and Joginder Reshi Dev, were killed in their rented accommodation in Wanpoh.“I strongly condemn this cowardly act. I have directed our security forces to step up their operations and eliminate the terrorists,” lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha wrote on X, adding that he had spoken to DGP Nalin Prabhat and other top security officials.PDP chief and ex-CM Mehbooba Mufti said it was a shame that workers migrating to find employment had been targeted. “They work themselves to the bone far away from home only to feed their families. Unimaginably cruel to target them in such senseless acts of violence,” she said.

BJP’s J&K spokesperson Altaf Thakur called the attack “cowardly, barbaric and inhuman”, saying the only intention was to disrupt the atmosphere in J&K. On July 22, a terrorist shot dead J&K Police head constable Ashiq Hussain Qureshi at Lal Chowk market of Anantnag town while he was on Amarnath Yatra duty. That was the first attack in Kashmir since the Pahalgam massacre of April 22, 2025, in which 26 people were killed.Both attacks came during the Amarnath Yatra, which began on July 3 but has been suspended since July 19 on the Pahalgam side because of heavy rain and landslides. It continues through the Baltal route in Ganderbal.Security forces have launched a cordon-and-search to trace the Kulgam attackers.