Vendor from Bihar shot dead by terrorists in Srinagar; UP labourer killed in Pulwama

In two separate incidents in J&K, two non-local civilians were attacked on Saturday by terrorists, one in Srinagar and the other in Pulwama.

Both succumbed to their injuries. The deaths add to the series of civilian deaths that the Valley has been witnessing in the past two weeks. The Srinagar incident involved a vendor identified as Arvind Kumar, who came from Bihar to work as a street hawker in Srinagar. The attack took place at around 6.40pm. Arvind was rushed to Government Medical College Srinagar where doctors declared him dead.

National Conference leader Omar Abdullah condemned the killing of the street vendor and wrote, “Strongly condemn the killing of street vendor Arvind Kumar in a terror attack in Srinagar today. This is yet another case of a civilian being targeted like this. All Arvind Kumar did was come to Srinagar in search of earning opportunities & it’s reprehensible that he was murdered.”

In another incident, another labour from Uttar Pradesh, Sagir Ahmad, was attacked in Pulwama. Later, he succumbed to his injuries.

The area in Srinagar where Bihar’s golgappa seller was attacked is the same area where the principal and a teacher of a school was gunned by the terrorists last week. Principal of Government Boys Higher Secondary School in Eidgah, Supinder Kaur, and a teacher, Deepak Chand, were shot dead inside the school premises on last Thursday. The Resistance Front, which is the front for terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba claimed responsibility for the attack and said the teachers were killed for their role in getting students to participate in a “function at school on August 15”, the independence day.

Two days before the heinous attack inside the school, three civilians were shot dead in separate attacks in the Valley on October 5. All those attacks took place one after the another and a pharmacy owner, a street vendor and another civilian were killed in those attacks.

Makhan Lal Bindroo, a Kashmiri Pandit, who was popular in Srinagar as a pharmacist and owned a well-known pharmacy was shot by the terrorists. Like today’s attack, a non-Kashmiri street vendor was shot by the terrorists near Madina Chowk. He too was from Bihar — from Bhagalpur. On that same day, a civilian was shot dead in North Kashmir’s Bandipora.