A year of relative calm in the Kashmir valley was shattered on July 31 when terrorists opened fire on two non-local laborers at a brick kiln in Kilam village of South Kashmir’s Kulgam district. The two laborers were migrants from the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh.
The attack at Kulgam has triggered panic among tens of thousands of laborers from India’s poorer northern states, who come to the Kashmir valley every year between March and November to work on construction sites, road projects, brick kilns, and apple orchards. The July 31 killings prompted some of them to return home.
The Kulgam attack came close on the heels of the killing of a Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) police constable at a busy market in Anantnag district. The attacks have raised concern over the return of terrorism to the Kashmir valley.
Indeed, the incident at Kulgam is the first targeted killing of non-local civilians by terrorists since April 22, 2025, when 26 men, all civilians, were shot dead at Pahalgam; 25 of them were from outside J&K and one was a Kashmiri pony ride operator, who tried to stop the shooting.
The massacre at Pahalgam led to India launching Operation Sindoor targeting terrorist camps and infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, which culminated in a four-day war between India and Pakistan in May. There had been no attacks on civilians since then; the bloodletting over the past fortnight broke that lull.
