Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba’s offshoot, The Resistance Front, carried out the attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Ganderbal, targeting both Kashmiris and non-Kashmiris for the first time, killing seven people.
The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, claimed responsibility for the attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, which killed a doctor and six migrant workers on Sunday, sources told India Today TV.
TRF chief Sheikh Sajjad Gul is the mastermind of the attack and the group’s local module, at his behest, carried out the attack targeting Kashmiris and non-Kashmiris together for the first time, sources said.
TRF has been active in Kashmir and has targeted Kashmiri Pandits, Sikhs and non-locals in the last one-and-a-half years, marking a big change in the strategy of the outfit, which earlier killed several Kashmiri Pandits, sources said.
The terror group had carried out a recee of the attack site – a construction site in the Sonamarg area of Ganderbal district – for the last one month, sources said, adding that two to three terrorists were said to carry out the targeted killings.
According to initial reports, the doctor and workers attacked were part of the construction team working on the Z-Morh tunnel, which connects Gaganeer to Sonamarg in Ganderbal.
The terrorists carried out the attack when the labourers and other staff working on the tunnel project at Gund in Ganderbal had returned to their camp late in the evening, officials told news agency PTI.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah strongly condemned the attack on “unarmed innocent people”, which came just four days after he was sworn in.
Sunday’s attack in Ganderbal came after terrorists killed a migrant worker from Bihar in Shopian district on October 18. A similar attack took place in April this year when a migrant labourer was shot dead by terrorists in a targeted attack in Anantnag district.
Article source: indiatoday.in
