Pakistan-Based Lashkar Offshoot Claims Responsibility For J&K Attack That Killed Doctor, Migrants: Reports

The Resistance Front (TRF), a militant front of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, has claimed responsibility for the attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Ganderbal district that resulted in the deaths of a doctor and six migrant workers on Sunday, reported India Today.

TRF leader Sheikh Sajjad Gul is believed to be the mastermind behind the attack, with the group's local module carrying out the operation at his instruction. For the first time, the attack targeted both Kashmiris and non-Kashmiris simultaneously, sources revealed.

The TRF has been active in Kashmir, targeting Kashmiri Pandits, Sikhs, and non-locals over the past year and a half. This marks a huge shift in the outfit's strategy, which previously focussed on killing Kashmiri Pandits, according to sources.

The group had reportedly conducted reconnaissance of the attack site, a construction area in the Sonamarg region of Ganderbal district, for the past month. Sources indicated that two to three terrorists were involved in the targeted killings.

Initial reports suggest that the doctor and workers were part of the construction team working on the Z-Morh tunnel, which connects Gaganeer to Sonamarg in Ganderbal. The terrorists struck in the evening when the labourers and staff working on the tunnel project in Gund, Ganderbal, had returned to their camp, officials told the news agency *PTI*.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah strongly condemned the attack on "unarmed innocent people", which occurred just four days after he was sworn into office.

Sunday's incident in Ganderbal followed the killing of a migrant worker from Bihar in the Shopian district on 18 October. A similar attack took place earlier in April this year, when a migrant labourer, also from Bihar, was fatally shot by terrorists in a targeted attack in the Anantnag district.