Srinagar: Militants kill jeweller weeks after he got domicile certificate
Suspected militants on Thursday (December 31) shot dead a 70-year-old jeweller seller in Srinagar, which became the first incident of killing in Kashmir for allegedly having obtained a certificate under the new domicile law a few weeks ago, reported The Indian Express.
Suspected militants on Thursday (December 31) shot dead a 70-year-old jeweller seller in Srinagar, which became the first incident of killing in Kashmir for allegedly having obtained a certificate under the new domicile law a few weeks ago, reported The Indian Express.
The victim, Satpal Nischal, had been running a jewellery shop in Saraibala, Srinagar for the last four decades, for which he had obtained a certificate under the new law which allows people living in Jammu and Kashmir for over 15 years to buy land in the region.
He was taken to nearby Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital after she was shot at, but died on the way. The responsibility for the attack was claimed by the recently floated outfit The Resistance Front, which has termed as “outsiders” those who obtain domicile certificates. Calling them as “RSS agents”, they’ve warned of further attacks: “We are coming for you.”
The victim, who hailed from Gurdaspur, Punjab, had applied for domicile certificate as his daughter-in-law is originally from Jammu and had bought a house in the Indira Nagar area and a shop in Hari Singh High Street jewellery market in her name, the report quoted sources as saying.
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The Front, which the police believe is a front of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, said in a statement on its social media channels that it has conducted an “intelligence-based operation in Srinagar today” during which an “RSS agent, who was posing as a businessman, was neutralised.”
“The individual was an active participant in the demographic change and settler colony project run by Hindutva fascists to alter the demography of Kashmir,” said the statement.
It said it had already warned that “any Indian national irrespective of faith, caste or colour, who comes to Kashmir with the intention of settling here, will be treated as an agent of the RSS and not as a civilian.”
The report quoted Kashmir IGP Vijay Kumar as saying that the police are probing both the aspects, of business rivalry and the claims made by militants.
