Srinagar: In yet another attack on a non-local trucker in the Kashmir Valley, a driver from Udhampur region was allegedly shot dead by militants in Bijbehara in Anantnag on Monday.
Narayan Dutt, a resident of Katra in Udhampur district, was fired upon by the militants in the evening in the Kanilwan area of Bijbehara in the south Kashmir district, a police official said. Dutt died on the spot, he added.
A senior police official, who was nearby, rushed to the scene of the incident and managed to save two other truck drivers who were in the vicinity, police said. The area has been cordoned off and a hunt launched to nab the attackers, they said.
The latest attack in south Kashmir takes the death toll of non-locals killed by militants in the Valley to six in the last two weeks.
The attack comes a day after the police asked the truckers and labourers to leave south Kashmir's Shopian after four militant attacks over the last few weeks. Two truckers were killed and their apple-laden vehicles set ablaze after suspected militants fired at them on October 24 in Chitargam village of Shopian.
On October 14, militants killed a truck driver from Rajasthan and set his apple-laden truck on fire.
Within 48 hours of that incident, two more similar attacks on non-locals were reported. A non-local labourer working at a brick kiln was killed in Pulwama district of south Kashmir. Hours later, two apple traders from Punjab were attacked -- one among them, identified as Charanjeet Singh, was killed and his associate critically injured.
The police have called these attacks attempts to intimidate the people against resuming normal life in the Valley as the fruit industry, one of the economic mainstays of the Valley, has been targeted repeatedly.
(With PTI inputs)
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