TIGHT VIGIL: Security personnel near the Secretariat in Jammu

SRINAGAR/MURSHIDABAD: Migrant workers started fleeing the Valley in droves on Wednesday as the rat-a-tat of terrorist gunfire that killed five labourers from Bengal in Kulgam district the previous day left south Kashmir on the edge yet again.

Although an estimate of the number of people taking flight from the four south Kashmir districts wasn't immediately available, officials and local residents said the exodus was more pronounced than in the wake of the previous wave of terrorist attacks on workers and truck drivers from outside the state.

In Bengal's Murshidabad district, from where the five slain labourers hailed, the father of a sixth worker who survived Tuesday's attack with two bullets in his abdomen said he regretted allowing his son to travel to terrorist-infested south Kashmir to earn a living.

“I own five bighas of land where harvesting will start in a few days. My son told me he would earn Rs 650 a day working there. He got married two months ago, and I allowed him to go thinking the extra money would help. I shouldn't have," 32-year-old Jahiruddin's father Abdus Samad Sarkar told TOI .

Jahiruddin is undergoing treatment at Srinagar 's SMHS Hospital, where his condition was stated to be critical but stable. "We have extricated the bullets from his abdomen," said medical superintendent Nazir Ahmad.

The families of the victims said all five had spoken days before the attack about receiving threats from terrorists because they were "non-Kashmiris".

In Katrochu village of Kulgam, where the migrant labourers were targeted, an eerie silence descended on the apple orchards that had been buzzing with activity till the day before. “There have been several killings in south Kashmir over the past few weeks, but the latest attack carried a dire message for all of us. Most of our non-local labourers have already left,” Farooq Ahmad Naik, a resident of Kulgam, said.

Scores of trucks trooped out of Kulgam and the other south Kashmir districts through the day, many of them without the shipments they were supposed to carry back. This was despite the authorities creating secure zones for trucks along Mughal Road, all the way to Rajouri district, sources said.

For truckers and workers staying back, rented accommodation is now hard to find because house owners fear terrorists might come looking for them any day.

Two Bengal labourers who escaped the attack in Kulgam called their families back home in Murshidabad on Wednesday morning to narrate how a stroke of luck helped them cheat death. Sadar Sarkar, 36, and Bakkar Mollah, 51, were part of the group that had left Bahalnagar village of Murshidabad for J&K 26 days ago to work in the orchards. On the afternoon of the attack, Sadar and Bakkar were at their employer's home to finalise their accounts.

The duo was about to return to the labourers' mess when their employer dissuaded them from doing so, saying he had heard about "an incident in the area" where they lived. "My brother came to know later that it was a terror attack and five of his co-workers from our village had been killed and a sixth injured," Sadar's brother Nadar quoted him as saying over the phone.

The group was to return home on November 1.

A police team from Sagardighi in Murshidabad had reached Bahalnagar late on Tuesday to convey news of the tragedy in Kashmir to the families of the deceased and the injured youth. “We prayed all night for our son,” Jahiruddin’s father said.

Nader said he had asked his brother not to step out on his own till the day of his return. "I told them he must be with police if he goes out. He and Bakkar were desperate to go to the hospital to see their co-worker Jahiruddin, but I asked him not to.”

Bakkar's wife Nurbanu Biwi said she has not been able to speak her husband yet. Clutching on to her sons Akbar and Omar, she said: “I have been told my husband is safe. But I do not know where he is. I just hope and pray he returns home soon."

Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee demanded an inquiry into the killing of the five labourers, blaming the Centre's failure to maintain law and order in J&K for the deaths. Mamata announced Rs 5 lakh in compensation to each of the families.

Congress's Lok Sabha leader Adhir Chowdhury wrote to Union home minister Amit Shah , demanding “security and protection” of labourers from Bengal working in Kashmir. “Their families are scared. Family members can’t contact some of them. The MHA should set up a helpline for them,” Chowdhury said.

