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Migrant workers killed in Kashmir could barely make ends meet
Arvind Kumar Sah, a resident of Banka in Bihar, was killed in Srinagar. He had been working in Kashmir for a decade and earned ₹300 to 400 daily selling golgappa. He is survived by parents and four brothers
The five migrant workers killed in Kashmir this month were poor street vendors and labourers barely making ends meet hundreds of kilometres away from their homes in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
Raja Reshi and Joginder Reshi from Bihar were shot dead at Wanpoh in Kulgam district in the latest in a series of targeted attacks that have left 11 people dead this month. The attack on Sunday was the third on migrant workers in two days. Arvind Kumar Sah, a resident of Banka in Bihar, was killed in Srinagar and Sageer Ahmad, a carpenter from Saharanpur, was shot dead in Pulwama on Saturday. On October 5, Virender Paswan, 55, also from Bihar, was killed in Srinagar.
Raja Reshi and Joginder Reshi’s fellow workers said the two had been working as labourers in Wanpoh and earned ₹500-700 daily. “We were sitting in our room when we heard that some people in another room were shot at. We took them to the hospital,” said Muhammad Zulfikar, a construction worker from Bihar living in Wanpoh. Another worker said one of the two killed in Wanpoh was shot six times.
News agency ANI quoted the mother of Joginder Reshi saying he had been in Kashmir for around four months. “He is survived by three children. The government should help us,” she said.
Also Watch: What non-Kashmiri workers said while fleeing amid targeted terror attacks
Raja Reshi and Joginder Reshi, who were in their late 20s, were killed a day after Ahmad, 53, the carpenter, was shot dead in Pulwama while he was doing the dishes. He is survived by four daughters and son, who lost their mother six months ago. “He has four daughters and a son who works in Rajasthan. Saghir had gone for work far away from his family because of the poverty. If there would have been work here, why would he have gone hundreds of kilometres away from home,” Ahmad’s brother, Muhammad Naeem told journalists on Sunday. He demanded strict punishment for the killers of his brother.
“His son was also forced to go to Rajasthan for work; so bad is the condition. They have nobody to take care of them except us uncles. The government should provide help of ₹one crore for my nieces.”
Ahmad was killed on the day Sah, 30, was shot dead in Srinagar. Sah sold golgappa and would earn ₹300 to 400 daily. He lived in Srinagar’s Hawal areas along with a group of migrant workers. Sah, who had been working in Kashmir from a decade, is survived by parents and four brothers. He had been home earlier this year.
Paswan, who earned ₹200 to 300 daily and is survived by four daughters and two sons, had not been home since 2019 as he wanted to save money for the education of his children, said one of his friends who did not want to be named.
