Kashmiri Pandits intensify protests after teacher’s killing in Kulgam

SRINAGAR — Kashmiri Pandits, mainly migrant employees putting up in different parts of Kashmir, intensified their protests in wake of a fresh incident involving the killing of a teacher in Gopalpora area of south Kashmir’s Kulgam district this afternoon.

Soon after the news about the killing of the woman teacher broke out, scores of community members took to the streets in many parts of Kashmir, decrying the alleged apathy shown by the authorities in controlling the intermittent killings taking place in the Valley.

The community members, joined by a sizeable number of Muslim brethren at many places, blocked roads to seek immediate intervention from government authorities to safeguard their lives.

Besides reports of protests pouring in from Vessu Qazigund of Anantnag, protests were also witnessed in central Kashmir’s Srinagar, Budgam and Ganderbal districts.

The protestors, as per GNS, halted all sorts of vehicular traffic movement near strategic BB Cantonment in Sonwar area. The demonstration caused a traffic gridlock at the main passage between Pandrethan and Sonwar.

The movement at ‘Airport Road’ also remained suspended after members putting up at Sheikhpora Camp took to the road to protest against the killing of the lady teacher identified as Rajni Bhalla from Samba district. Similar reports were also received from Kulgam district.

Following the killing of a Revenue clerk in Chadoora, Kashmir migrant Pandits in J&K on a special package had requested to be transferred out of Kashmir on security grounds. Despite the government’s efforts to reach out to them, the ‘problem’, according to them, ‘has not abated’.

Reacting to the attack on the teacher, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha termed it “most reprehensible act”. “My deepest condolences to the bereaved family.”

He said that militants and their sympathizers will be given “unforgettable response for dastardly attack”.