About 6000 migrant labourers arrived in Jammu City from various parts of the Valley on Monday, even as separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani diluted the warning by saying that they only wanted the “criminal elements” in the migrant population to leave. Though the Jammu and Kashmir Government is down playing the quantum of this exodus, migrant workers, mostly Muslims from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, have been abandoning their contracts and fleeing for security.A threat call was issued to the community of migrant labourers by the Hizbul Mujahideen after the rape of a Kashmiri girl and the arrest of two migrant labourers .The migrant population that arrived in Jammu city on Monday has taken refuge under flyovers, parks and slums of the city. Mahesh from Nasik Panjbatti in Maharastra arrived in a group of 40 people from Srinagar. All in the group were engaged in small jobs in the Valley. “Hum to vahan churan charan bechte thhey aur gujara kartey thhey lekin vahan rehna mushkil hai,” he said.Another person Preetam arrived with a group of about 20 people from near Katra. They moved after being informed about it by some returning labouers. “Suna bacchon ko bhi martey aur kat rahen hain,” he said.Dinesh, who migrated from Delhi, boarded a truck to return. He said the police and the locals have been harrassing him since the Kupwara rape incident triggered the warning from the outfits. While most are planning to go back to their hometowns, there are some who want to wait a while before returning to the Valley.Trying to play down the exodus, Divisional Commissioner Mehboob Iqbal said, “We have reports of a small number of labourers leaving the Valley from Kupwara and Baramulla districts.” However, the scare does not appear to be uniform. Just across Lal Bazar in Nowshehra, non-Kashmiri labourers are still a common sight at construction works. “We are aware of the threat. But we hope everything will be alright,” said Mustafa Ahmad Siddiqui from Bihar. He has been coming to Kashmir since 1993 and is the General Secretary of the local Bihari Labour Union which comprises 300 members. He said around 100 of his colleagues have left in the past two days.
