Srinagar: Rohit Kumar Mashi who was with another worker from Punjab targeted by gunmen in Srinagar’s Shalla Kadal locality on Wednesday evening died in a City hospital early Thursday morning, raising the toll to two.
The police blamed the gory incident on separatist militants. They said a case under the relevant provisions of the law had been registered at Srinagar’s Shaheed Gunj police station and a manhunt launched for the assassins. Local media reported that proscribed ‘The Resistance Front (TRF)’ which the police say is a shadow group of Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) has claimed responsibility for targeting the duo.
25-year-old Rohit and his colleague Amritpal Singh were shot at from close range by unidentified gunmen at around 7 pm on Thursday at Shalla Kadal, a congested locality of central Srinagar, leaving them in a pool of their own blood.
As the police rushed to the spot, they found Singh, 31, a resident of Amritsar, already dead. Rohit son of Prem Mashi who had received a deep bullet wound in the abdomen was rushed to the nearby Sri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital (SMHSH) where he breathed his last on Thursday morning. The slain were working as carpenters in the Valley for the past several years, the police said.
Meanwhile, the murder of two more non-local workers has been widely condemned by various political parties of J&K. Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, in a post on ‘X’, said, “I am deeply shocked and saddened by the heinous terror attack in Srinagar on Amritpal & Rohit from Amritsar. I condemn in strongest terms this brutal act, which has snuffed out an innocent life. In this hour of grief, I convey my heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family.”
Also, candle-light protests were held at several places in the Valley including in Pulwama and Handwara (Kupwara district). In Jammu, the Rashtriya Bajrang Dal (RBD) activists chanted anti-Pakistan slogans and also torched the neighbouring country’s national flag at a street protest against the killings.
