बेबाक · Editorial
After the Kulgam Killings, the Republic Owes Its Non-Local Workers More Than a Review
Two Chhattisgarh labourers killed at a Kulgam brick kiln, with relatives alleging the attackers asked their caste and community first, demand protection that matches the nature of the threat.
What happened
On Friday evening, two labourers from Chhattisgarh were killed by suspected militants at a brick kiln in Kulgam, Jammu and Kashmir. According to relatives of the victims, as reported by the Times of India, the attackers questioned the men about their caste and community before opening fire. That allegation, if established, would underline the use of identity as a weapon of intimidation. On Saturday, the Lieutenant Governor chaired a high-level security review in Srinagar and directed agencies to intensify precise, high-impact anti-terror operations. That response is necessary. It is also, by itself, insufficient. A meeting convened after two daily-wage workers have been killed cannot be the whole of the state's answer.
The core tension
Two truths sit uneasily together. The security establishment cannot place a guard at every vulnerable worksite where non-local workers labour; any heavy security footprint also carries costs for ordinary residents. Yet non-local workers are vulnerable precisely because they are visible, unarmed and dependent on local conditions they do not control. The question is not whether the state responds after an attack, but whether its protective architecture matches a pattern of concern repeatedly raised around the safety of such workers. Reviewing readiness after each killing risks treating a recurring danger as a series of isolated shocks.
Steel-manning both sides
The administration's case is real: intelligence-led operations can degrade networks that plan such attacks, and blanket physical protection of a scattered workforce is operationally difficult. The workers' case is equally real. They travel far from Chhattisgarh to earn a daily wage, often in places where the state has a better understanding of threat levels than they do. Both claims cannot be fully satisfied at once. But when one side carries most of the risk and least of the information, the moral weight falls on the better-resourced side — the state — to close that gap before the next attack, not after. Firmness and restraint are not opposites here; precision serves both.
The evidence
The specifics matter, and the pack supplies enough to demand accountability without licensing careless certainty. Two Chhattisgarh labourers were killed at a Kulgam brick kiln on Friday evening; the Lieutenant Governor then ordered a security review and intensified operations. The Times of India reports the victims' relatives said the killers asked caste and community first, and that the incident echoes survivor accounts from a previous attack. That claim remains an allegation until investigators establish it. But the renewed concern over non-local workers' safety is real. An honest reckoning also refuses the communal framing the attackers allegedly sought: the answer to men murdered while working is not counter-suspicion of any community, but equal protection for every worker.
The way forward
A durable response has three concrete parts. First, a registered-worksite protocol: employers of non-local labour in vulnerable areas should share worker locations with the local administration, enabling rapid alerts and protective measures when threat levels rise, without turning worksites into fortresses or workers into the surveilled. Second, a clear compensation and rehabilitation floor for families, swift and non-discretionary, so a daily-wager's death does not also bankrupt his household. Third, sustained, intelligence-led operations judged not by the frequency of review meetings but by whether attacks on soft targets fall. Protect the worker, not merely the perimeter. A republic that depends on its poorest to cross state lines for work owes them a way home that is not a coffin.
A worker who crosses state lines to lay bricks carries the republic's promise on his back; the state must ensure that promise is not paid for in blood.
Your Constitutional Rights
What the Constitution guarantees in this storyUntouchability is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden and punishable.
Fundamental RightThe State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth — while allowing special provision for women, children and backward classes.
Fundamental RightNo person shall be deprived of life or personal liberty except by a fair, just and reasonable procedure established by law — read by the courts to include dignity, privacy, health, a clean environment and livelihood.
Fundamental RightTraffic in human beings, begar and other forms of forced labour are prohibited.
Fundamental RightWhat this editorial rests on
Drawn from our live multi-newsroom feed — read the reporting at source.
Join the movement
One fearless editorial at a time — in your language. Plus the constitutional Ask that must follow.
An editorial is the considered opinion of The Mudda desk, argued from the sourced reporting above and written under our published persona, बेबाक. We name institutions and actors; we do not endorse or attack any political party. "The Mudda's Ask" is a citizen's good-faith policy proposal, grounded in the Constitution — not the platform of any party. Translations are faithful — no fact is added in any language. If we are wrong, we will say so. How we work →