06-06-2022

MonDAY, JunE 6, 2022
11
Hindu banker and a worker from
India fatally shot in Kashmir
SRINAGAR : Assailants fatally shot a
Hindu bank manager and a worker in
targeted shootings in Indian-controlled
Kashmir on Thursday, according to
police who blamed the attacks on
militants fighting against Indian rule of
the disputed region, reports UNB.
Militants shot and wounded two
Hindu workers at a brick factory near
Chadoora town on Thursday night,
Jammu-Kashmir police said in a
statement. They were taken to a
hospital, where one of the workers from
India's Bihar state died.
Earlier Thursday, suspected militants
shot and killed a bank manager, Vijay
Kumar, in southern Kulgam district, a
separate Jammu-Kashmir police
statement said. Kumar, from India's
Rajasthan state, died at a hospital
following the shooting.
CCTV footage circulating on social
media shows a masked assailant walk
into the bank and fire shots at Kumar
with what appears to be a handgun.
Muslim-majority Kashmir has
witnessed a spate of targeted killings in
recent months. They come as Indian
troops have continued their
counterinsurgency operations across
the region amid a clampdown on
dissent and media freedom, which
critics have likened to a militaristic
policy.
On Tuesday, suspected militants, also
in Kulgam, shot and killed a Hindu
schoolteacher, Rajini Bala.
After that killing, Hindu government
employees staged protests in several
areas, demanding the government
relocate them from Kashmir to safer
areas in the Hindu-dominated Jammu
region. They accused the government
of making them "scapegoats" and
"cannon fodder" to showcase normalcy
in the region and chanted slogans like
"The only solution is relocation."
Hundreds of Hindus who had
returned to the region after 2010 as
part of a government resettlement plan
Joypurhat district Awami League organized a tree-plantation program at
Joypurhat government college campus yesterday on the occasion of World
Environment Day.
Photo : Masrakul Alam
that provided them with jobs and
housing fled the Kashmir Valley after
the killing of Bala, according to
Kashmiri Hindu activists. Some 4,000
Kashmiri Hindus, who are locally
known as Pandits, have been recruited
for government jobs under the
program.
Those employees have been on a
strike since May 13 after a Hindu
revenue clerk was killed inside an office
complex in Chadoora town.
In the aftermath of the clerk's killing,
hundreds of Pandits - an estimated
200,000 of whom fled Kashmir after
an anti-India rebellion erupted in 1989
- organized for the first time
simultaneous street protests at several
locations in the region demanding
better security.
"We were tricked into thinking that
the government is rehabilitating us
under an employment package," said
Jyoti Bhat, a local Hindu teacher who
joined the program seven years ago.
North Korea test-fires
salvo of short-range
missiles
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA :
North Korea test-fired a
barrage of short-range ballistic
missiles from multiple
locations toward the sea on
Sunday, South Korea's military
said, extending a provocative
streak in weapons
demonstrations this year that
U.S. and South Korean officials
say may culminate with a
nuclear test explosion. Possibly
setting a single-day record for
North Korean ballistic launches,
eight missiles were fired in
succession over 35 minutes
from at least four different
locations, including from
western and eastern coastal
areas and two inland areas
north of and near the capital.
Chairman of Akboria Care Faundation Hasan Ali Alal distributed saplings among over five hundred
males and females in Bogura yesterday on the occasion of World Environment Day. Photo : Azahar Ali
Teachers after Texas attack:
'None of us are built for this'
CHARLESTON : Teacher Jessica Salfia
was putting up graduation balloons last
month at her West Virginia high school
when two of them popped, setting off panic
in a crowded hallway between classes.
One student dropped to the floor. Two
others lunged into open classrooms. Salfia
quickly shouted, "It's balloons! Balloons!"
and apologized as the teenagers realized
the noise didn't come from gunshots.
The moment of terror at Spring Mills
High School in Martinsburg, about 80
miles (124 kilometers) northwest of
Washington happened May 23, the day
before a gunman fatally shot 19 children
and two teachers in a classroom in Uvalde,
Texas. The reaction reflects the fear that
pervades the nation's schools and taxes its
teachers - even those who have never
experienced such violence - and it comes
on top of the strain imposed by the
coronavirus pandemic.
Salfia has a more direct connection to
gun threats than most. Her mother, also a
West Virginia teacher, found herself staring
down a student with a gun in her classroom
seven years ago.
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