The Pulse | Security | South Asia

15 Months After Massacre at Pahalgam, Terrorists Target Non-local Civilians Again in Kashmir

Two laborers from central India were shot dead at a brick kiln in Kulgam in the Kashmir valley on July 31.

A year of relative calm in the Kashmir valley was shattered on July 31 when terrorists opened fire on two non-local laborers at a brick kiln in Kilam village of South Kashmir’s Kulgam district. The two laborers were migrants from the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh.

The attack at Kulgam has triggered panic among tens of thousands of laborers from India’s poorer northern states, who come to the Kashmir valley every year between March and November to work on construction sites, road projects, brick kilns, and apple orchards. The July 31 killings prompted some of them to return home.

The Kulgam attack came close on the heels of the killing of a Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) police constable at a busy market in Anantnag district. The attacks have raised concern over the return of terrorism to the Kashmir valley.

Indeed, the incident at Kulgam is the first targeted killing of non-local civilians by terrorists since April 22, 2025, when 26 men, all civilians, were shot dead at Pahalgam; 25 of them were from outside J&K and one was a Kashmiri pony ride operator, who tried to stop the shooting.

The massacre at Pahalgam led to India launching Operation Sindoor targeting terrorist camps and infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, which culminated in a four-day war between India and Pakistan in May. There had been no attacks on civilians since then; the bloodletting over the past fortnight broke that lull.

The killings at Kulgam came days before the seventh anniversary of New Delhi’s abrogation of J&K’s autonomy. It was on August 5, 2019, that the Narendra Modi government announced the revocation of Article 370 and Article 35A – a unilateral action that was hugely unpopular in J&K. India will also be marking its 79th Independence Day on August 15. The run-up to anniversaries of milestone events usually sees an uptick in terror attacks in the Kashmir valley.

Since August 2019, over 25 non-local workers have been killed in terror attacks in Kashmir. In October that year, six laborers from West Bengal were lined up and shot dead in Kulgam. There were 10 migrant laborer fatalities in 2022. A terror strike on a construction team working on the Z-Morh tunnel in Ganderbal district resulted in the death of six migrant workers and a Kashmiri doctor in October 2024.

The post-2019 surge in attacks on non-local workers can in part be attributed to Delhi’s nullification of Article 35-A, a constitutional provision that preserved the distinct identity of J&K.

Kashmiris were apprehensive that the scrapping of Article 35-A would “open the floodgates to non-locals to work and live in the valley, altering the local demography and allowing outsiders to get jobs here,” a Kashmir University professor told The Diplomat. Terror groups “capitalized on these anxieties” to kill scores of non-local laborers working in J&K,........

© The Diplomat