Amid a spate of targeted killings, employees belonging to the minority community, especially Kashmiri Pandits posted in the Valley under PM’s employment package, have started returning to their homes in Jammu. Around 30-40 families of the employees returned to Jagti township meant for Kashmiri Pandits near Nagrota, on Thursday night. The Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner (Migrants) Ashok Pandita said he got to know about the return of employees staying at Mattan in Anantang district. Many others are still staying put in Baramulla, Sheikhpura and Kupwara, he added. An employee who reached home in Jagti said there was an atmosphere of fear, making it difficult for the minorities to stay in the Valley. “As we heard about the killing of a bank employee, we immediately left,’’ he said, adding that 40-50 families have returned so far. “Others, too, will come back in a couple of days and they will be launching an agitation in Jammu,” another employee said, adding “we have only one demand that government shall relocate us to Jammu until situation becomes congenial for our safe stay in the Valley’’. “Do you think we can stay there when we are getting killed point blank,’’ asked a migrant Kashmiri Pandit employee who also returned to Jammu from the Valley. While two minority community non-locals, including a bank employee and a labourer were killed on Thursday, a woman school teacher was killed two days earlier, he pointed out. “Prior to that, militants killed Rahul Bhat, school principal Supinder Kour, teacher Deepak Chand, chemist M L Bindroo and policeman Ajay Dhar. Have we been sent there to pick up dead bodies,’’ he asked. The targeted killings in the Valley ahead of the Amarnath Yatra have sounded alarm bells for the UT administration. The ongoing violence has already cast its shadow on the forthcoming annual Kheer Bhawani mela on June 8 in Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, with many a Kashmir-based organisations appealing for its cancellation. The Ramakrishna Mahasammelan Ashram in Achabal area of Anantnag, which has been organising langar for pilgrims on the temple premises for the past over two decades, has decided not to do so this year. “We had procured ration and made arrangements for providing food to pilgrims. However, we have decided to cancel our programme,” said B L Bhat, chairman of the administrative council of the Mission. The officials of Dharmarth Trust that looks after the Kheer Bhawani temple said they have not announced cancellation of the annual fair. Shopian: 2 migrants injured in grenade blast Two migrant labourers were injured in a grenade blast in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir on Friday, police said. “Militants lobbed grenade at Aglar Zainapora, resulting in minor injuries to two non-locals. Area has been cordoned off,” a police spokesman said in a tweet.
