Bombing in Srinagar a response to Islamists’ calls

Praveen Swami NEW DELHI: It is unclear if Rubina Khatoon or her family ever feared anything other than the prospect of starvation. But the desperately poor mother of four and her children — all of whom died in Thursday’s jihadist attack on a bus carrying migrant workers at the Batmaloo bus stand in Srinagar — were seen by Islamists in Jammu and Kashmir as dangerous enemies: soldiers in an Indian war to transform the State’s demographic character. Less than 24 hours before Thursday’s tragic killings, Islamist leader Hilal Ahmad War had asked non-Kashmiri workers to leave the region, warning them that they would otherwise be “forcibly evicted.” Mr. War claimed that the migrants were threatening “our economy, our daughters and our future generations.” He even alleged that migrant workers were spreading “various diseases,... [read full story]