Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir: Thousands of migrant workers moved to secure locations, hundreds flee

OCCUPIED SRINAGAR: Indian authorities have moved thousands of migrant workers in Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) to safer locations overnight, while hundreds have fled the Himalayan valley after a wave of targeted killings, two security officials said on Monday.

Suspected fighters have killed eleven civilians, including five migrant workers, in IIOJK since early October despite a widespread security crackdown in the heavily militarised region.

While the trigger for the latest wave of attacks was not immediately clear, IIOJK has been the site of armed insurgency against New Delhi for decades.

"We moved thousands of workers to secure places and are facilitating their return home," a senior police official told Reuters, declining to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

In other areas, security forces had intensified patrolling to prevent any militant activity, the official added.

A government spokesman in occupied Srinagar declined to comment on the movement of migrant workers.

The decision to move workers came after an attack on migrant labourers from Bihar on Sunday. Police said that freedom fighters barged into a rented room in Occupied Kulgam district and fired at them, leaving two dead and one wounded.

The hundreds of thousands of migrant workers currently in IIOJK form the backbone of the region's workforce in agriculture and construction.

Some of them said they now fear for their lives.