Suspected militants kill Hindu school teacher in Indian Kashmir
Srinagar, India, May 31 (EFE).- Suspected militants on Tuesday fatally shot a female school teacher from the minority Hindu community inside her school in India-administered Kashmir, police said, in what is the latest in a series of targeted attacks in the valley.
Police attributed the incident to militants fighting against Indian rule in the region, and launched a search operation in Gopalpora area of southern Kashmir Kulgam district, where the incident took place.
A police officer, who asked not to be named, told EFE that militants walked into the high school premises and shot at 35-year-old Rajni Bala.
Bala, a resident of Samba – a Hindu dominated area in Jammu division – was rushed to a medical facility, where doctors declared her dead, he said.
Former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, in a tweet, condemned the killing and described it as an act of “cowardice” that “sadly plays into the vicious anti-Muslim narrative spun by the BJP,” referring to the party that forms the federal government.
“Despite government of India’s fake claims about Kashmir being normal it is obvious that targeted killings are on the rise and a deep cause of concern,” she said.
It is the second incident of its kind since October 2021, when suspected militants killed two non-Muslim school teachers in Srinagar, the main city in the Muslim-majority region of India.
Three people belonging to Hindu community have been killed and one wounded by militants in different incidents in the last two months, according to police records, sparking widespread outrage in the region.
The migrant Kashmiri Hindus posted in the valley have been protesting and demanding transfer to safer areas following the killing of Rahul Bhat from their community on May 12.
Kashmir has witnessed a series of targeted attacks since August 2019, when the federal government abrogated the region’s semi-autonomous status and bifurcated it into two directly ruled units.
Officials claim that police and security forces have been put on high alert in the face of these incidents.
Earlier in the day, police said that two militants were killed in an operation in the southern Pulwama district.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan along a de-facto border of the line of control since 1947, but is claimed in its entirety by both nations.
Indian Kashmir has witnessed an armed insurgency over the last few decades that has resulted in the killing of thousands of people, mostly civilians. EFE
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