Fleeing Kashmir, migrants make a beeline for railway stations, bus stands

Jammu, October 19

Thousands of migrant workers fleeing Kashmir along with their families queued up outside ticket counters of railway stations and bus stops here Tuesday as targeted killing of minorities and non-locals by terrorists triggered an exodus from the Valley.

The security in and around the railway stations and bus stands in Jammu and Udhampur has been beefed up as a precautionary measure as people have been arriving in large numbers, desperate to leave ahead of schedule, and more are on the way, officials said.

As per rough estimates, 3 to 4 lakh migrant labourers, most of them Hindus, from UP, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand come to the Valley every year in early March for skilled and unskilled jobs such as masonry, carpentry, welding and farming, and go back home before the onset of winter in November.

Meanwhile, a few migrants accused their employers of withholding their salaries. Ajay Kumar of Besangoan, Bihar, who fled along with his wife Sarita and two kids from a brick kiln at Pulwama in South Kashmir and reached the Jammu railway station, wept bitterly saying his employer refused to pay Rs 27,000 in pending wages.

“We had no money. I along with my wife and two children got some money from others and left. The owner forced us out without paying us the remaining wages”, says Ajay Kumar, showing a diary with his wage bill.

Ram Sharan and Santosh Kumar of Bihar, and Rakesh Dass and Alok Chand Darma (Chattisgarh) too had similar complaints. — PTI

Exodus of hope

Innocents are being killed in J&K. There is exodus of hope from the UT. The Modi government, which speaks all the time of security, is missing. Randeep Surjewala, Cong spokesperson

Take concrete steps

We ask the UT to take visibly concrete steps to ensure the safety of soft targets, including poor labourers and street vendors from other states. Girdhari Lal Raina, BJP’s J&K spokesperson