A female school principal from Sikh community and a Kashmiri Pandit teacher, shot dead by three armed assailants on the premises of a school on the outskirts of Srinagar on Thursday.
The attack at a government-run Boys Higher Secondary School in Srinagar’s Eidgah locality took place barely 36 hours after three civilians were shot dead by armed assailants.
The deceased have been identified as Supinder Kour, a Sikh who worked as the principal of the school in downtown Srinagar where the incident took place, and Deepak Chand, a Kashmir Pandit who was a teacher there, according to news agencies.
“First they demanded to know our identities. Then the Muslim staff was asked to go out of the room while they spoke with the two victims. We don’t know what they talked about,” a witness told The Wire.
“The assailants then got them out of the room and shot them mercilessly,” according to the eyewitness.
He went on to say: “It was only when the shooting subsided and people living in the neighbourhood gathered in the school compound that I came out to see the two bodies lying in a pool of blood.”
Ravinder Singh, who lives in Alochi Bagh, told the news website, the incident has triggered a sense of fear in the community. “It has become difficult to live here. What was her fault? We need assurances from the majority community,” he said in a broken voice.
DGP Dilbag told reporters that The Resistance Front was responsible for the killings.
The front was founded by Abbas Sheikh, a recycled militant from Kashmir militancy’s old guard who was gunned down earlier this year by security forces.
“TRF is run from Karachi. We will soon expose this nexus from across (the border). The victims were not affiliated with any group, ” Dilbag said.
