Many speak chaste Kashmiri after years of working in what they call ‘Chotta Dubai’.Thousands of migrant workers from poorer Indian provinces never felt unsafe through years of unrest, but they do now. With five workers shot dead in October,we travelled to five Kashmir districts and found while hundreds were leaving,some said they would stay after a reassurance from locals.

Kulgam, Jammu & Kashmir: Fear was evident on the face of 29-year-old Rohit Sah, a street-food vendor from Bihar’s Banka district as he attended to customers in Awantipora town of Pulwama district, 32 km south of J&K capital Srinagar.

Sah’s eyes were focused more on his surroundings than his roadside cart, piled with nandre monje and channa (lotus fritters and chickpeas).A few meters away, a stationary police vehicle monitored public movement.

Sah said he had been anxious about his safety after militants killed four migrant workers in Kashmir in different attacks in a week, taking October’s civilian death toll to 11.

Sah said he earned more here than he could ever hope to back home, had been working in Kashmir for the last eight years and never felt unsafe through unrest and violence. That changed with the latest attack.

“I have packed all my belongings and will leave in the next two days,” said Sah, who was worried about debts he owed and business relationships he had built. “In these eight years, I never felt unsafe here but now I am.” He said he would return only if the situation improved.

Thirty-eight people were killed in Kashmir over the first 20 days of October, including 11 civilians, 17 militants and 10 soldiers. Among the 11 civilians killed, three were Hindus and Sikhs, three Kashmiri Muslims and five were migrant workers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (UP), both Muslim and Hindu.

On 17 October, after the killings of two migrant workers—Raja Reshi and Joginder Reshi from Bihar in south Kashmir’s Kulgam district—some 68 km south of Srinagar, hundreds across Kashmir packed their belongings and left for their home states.


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