After a spate of attacks, BJP members are leaving party ranks in Kashmir

On the morning of August 9 morning, suspected militants opened fire on Abdul Hamid Najar, a Bharatiya Janata Party worker, in Central Kashmir’s Budgam district. Critically injured, Najar was shifted to a hospital in Srinagar. He died a day later.

Najar’s killing happened just days after Sajad Ahmad Khanday, a sarpanch and a member of the BJP, was shot dead in Vessu, part of South Kashmir’s Kulgam district.

Khanday was attacked on August 6, a day after Jammu and Kashmir completed one year as a Union Territory without special status. Videos of BJP workers in Kashmir celebrating the anniversary were circulated widely on social media.

According to a police statement, Khanday was also attacked by militants. He died of his injuries in hospital. Like other panchayat leaders in the districts of South Kashmir, where local militancy is widespread, Khanday had been moved to a secure location before the August 5 anniversary.

“The said Sarpanch was accommodated in a secure migrant camp in Vesu but today he went to his house without informing police,” the police statement added.

On August 4, just two days before Khanday was killed, militants shot at another BJP sarpanch in Akhran village, also part of Kulgam district. Arif Ahmad, who was shot...

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