A Kashmiri Pandit man was killed and another injured after suspected militants fired at them in Jammu and Kashmir’s Shopian district on Tuesday.

The police said that attack took place at an apple orchard in the Chotipora area of the district. The injured person has been taken to a hospital for treatment.

The area has been cordoned off, the police added.

The person who died was identified as Sunil Kumar and the one who was injured was Pintu Kumar, PTI quoted an official as saying.

This was the second attack on civilians in the Union Territory in less than 24 hours. On Monday, a civilian, Karan Kumar Singh, died in a grenade attack by militants in the Budgam district, the police said.

Advertisement

On Tuesday, politicians in the Union Territory expressed grief on the killing.

National Conference leader Omar Abdullah offered his condolences to Sunil Kumar’s family and said that the militant attack and an accident in the Union Territory have “left a trail of death and suffering.”

He was referring to an accident near the Pahalgam area earlier in the day, in which six Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel died and 33 others were injured after a bus they were travelling in fell into a deep gorge.

The BJP’s Jammu and Kashmir chief Ravinder Raina said that those involved in targeting Kashmiri Pandits in Shopian will be punished, ANI reported. “Pakistan wants to turn Kashmir into graveyards but we won’t allow it to fulfill its nefarious designs,” he said.

Advertisement

The Aam Aadmi Party said that the attack showed the reality of the security situation in the Union Territory. “The government has absolutely failed to provide security to people,” it said on Twitter.

Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha said he was pained by the attack and wished a speedy recovery to the injured person, according to his office.

“The attack deserves strongest condemnation from everyone,” Sinha added. “Terrorists responsible for barbaric act will not be spared.”

Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti said that every resident of Jammu and Kashmir had “become cannon fodder” in the Centre’s quest for manufactured normalcy. “[Government of India] continues to behave like an ostrich with its head buried deep under the sand,” she said.