The principal and a teacher of a government school were killed by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir's Srinagar today, the latest in a spate of targeted killings in the Kashmir valley. Terrorists stormed into the Government Boys Higher Secondary School in Srinagar's Eidgah area and shot the principal and the teacher at close range, a government official said. There were no students in the school as classes are still online.
The attack comes less than 48 hours after three persons were shot dead in strikes on Tuesday. Seven people have been killed in terror attacks in Kashmir in the last five days. The police chief of Jammu and Kashmir said the terror outfit "The Resistance Front" (TRF) is behind today's attack.
The victims were from Kashmir's minority Sikh and Hindu communities. The teacher, Deepak Chand, was a Hindu from Jammu and the principal, Supunder Kour, was a Sikh.
"The pistol-wielding men came into the school this morning and asked for the identity cards of the teachers and later fired at two teachers, one each from the minority Sikh and Hindu community," news agency Reuters quoted a school teacher as saying.
"At about 11:15 am, terrorists shot dead two school teachers at Sangam Eidgah in Srinagar district," a police official said. He said the area has been cordoned off and a hunt has been launched for the attackers.
"TRF is run from Karachi. We will soon expose this nexus from across (the border). The victims were not affiliated with any group. It's a malicious propaganda by TRF that Bindroo was working with the RSS," Jammu and Kashmir police chief Dilbag Singh told NDTV.
"We are concerned about every civilian life."
Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha condemned the killing of the school staff, saying the terrorists behind the attack and their patrons will not succeed in disturbing peace in the union territory. "I strongly condemn the barbaric killing of two of our teachers, Supinder Kour and Deepak Chand by terrorists. A befitting reply will be given to the perpetrators of the heinous terror attacks on innocent people," Mr Sinha tweeted.
National Conference leader and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah condemned the latest killings. "Shocking news coming in again from Srinagar. Another set of targeted killings, this time of two teachers in a government school in Idgah area of the city. Words of condemnation are not enough for this inhuman act of terror but I pray for the souls of the deceased to rest in peace," he tweeted.
On Tuesday, 70-year-old Makhan Lal Bindroo, a prominent businessman and the owner of a pharmacy in Srinagar's Iqbal Park, was shot at from point-blank range inside his store around 7 pm, the police said. He was immediately rushed to a hospital where doctors declared him dead on arrival.
The police and security forces rushed to the spot but his attackers had already escaped.
A Kashmiri Pandit, Mr Bindroo had remained in Kashmir and run his pharmacy even at the peak of terrorism in the 1990s.
The two others killed on Tuesday were a street food vendor in downtown Srinagar and another civilian in Bandipora. The man has been identified as Mohammad Shafi, the president of a taxi stand in the area.
The street food vendor was identified as Virender Paswan, a resident of Bhagalpur in Bihar.
(With inputs from Reuters and PTI)
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