"Can't Allow Ethnic Cleansing": Government Sources On Kashmir Killings

The targeted killings of Hindus and migrant workers by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir "will not deter" the government from its job in the union territory, a senior official in the administration told NDTV on Friday.

"Targeted killings show the level of desperation. Our system will take care of this. This spate of killing will stop. It happened in October last year too," the official said, requesting not to be named.

The statement offered some insight into the government's plan to tackle the spate of attacks in the union territory that have targeted mostly non-locals and Kashmiri Pandits.

"Tourists can be killed if they are targeting non-locals. Anybody can be under attack. They will target Muslims too," the official said.

Rejecting calls by Kashmiri Pandits to lift lockdowns on their settlements and allow them to move out of Kashmir, he said, "We will not transfer Kashmiri Pandits to Jammu. We can't be part of any ethnic cleansing. We believe in a multicultural society. We will move Kashmiri Pandits who are working in safer locations."

Suggesting that the government was keen things running as they are, he said, "Elections will happen whenever the Election Commission will decide. There is a democratic system... some killing here and there will not deter us."

"There is no evidence of Taliban [being behind these attacks]. This is not jihad. This is done by some militants. Pakistan is behind all these attacks. There is an attempt to create chaos," the official said.

"We don't want a small group of people who are trying to create a narrative that only they can run the state and get back to the old system," he added, in an apparent reference to local parties in Jammu and Kashmir who have strongly criticised the government over the killings.

The comments came a day after a Hindu bank manager and a labourer were shot and killed in Kashmir, as a wave of targeted killings drove more Hindu families to flee the territory ruled by the BJP-led government at the centre.

Bank manager Vijay Kumar was attacked by a terrorist inside a branch of the Ellaquai Dehati Bank in southern Kashmir's Kulgam, where a schoolteacher was shot dead on Tuesday, local police said.

"He received grievous gunshot injuries in this terror incident," Kashmir police said in a tweet, later adding that Kumar, originally from western Rajasthan state, had died from his wounds.

In a separate incident, terrorists shot at two non-local labourers in Budgam district on Thursday, a police official said.

"Militants shot at two outside labourers working in a brick kiln in Chadoora area of Budgam. They were shifted to a nearby medical facility for treatment, where one of them succumbed," he said.