Another BJP member in J&K shot at, more party workers quit

SRINAGAR: A BJP functionary out on his morning walk was critically injured in a terrorist attack in central Kashmir's Budgam on Sunday, prompting at least two senior office-bearers of the district unit to resign from their posts and give up primary membership of the party for fear of being targeted next.
Abdul Hamid Najar is the seventh BJP member to be attacked in the Valley — four of them died – in the past two months. He was hospitalised with a bullet each in his abdomen and a leg, a police official said.
Within hours of the 38-year-old resident of Ompora being shot at, BJP's district office secretary Sameer Shah and general secretary Imran Ahmad Parray put in their papers in a replay of what had happened in the wake of the previous two attacks on party functionaries elsewhere in the Valley.
With around a dozen BJP members quitting so far over terrorist strikes targeting panchayat office-bearers during the past week, the party's J&K general secretary Ashok Koul dashed off a letter to president JP Nadda, seeking safe sanctuary for grassroots workers in each district.
Koul said the series of terrorist attacks since the eve of the first anniversary of the nullification of Article 370 reflected the atmosphere of fear that was forcing party workers to quit.
After BJP sarpanch Sajad Ahmad Khanday was shot dead in Kulgam last Thursday, three party workers of the area resigned almost immediately and sought "forgiveness" from terror outfits. A day earlier, three BJP office-bearers had publicly resigned in Kulgam, saying they could no longer spare time for the party.
"We don’t want our office-bearers, workers and activists to become easy targets of terrorists," Koul said. "In Ompora, we have safe accommodation for our workers within the Pandit cluster but there are no arrangements for food yet. I took up the issue with our party chief."
In south Kashmir's Kulgam and Anantnag, the police this week moved dozens of panchayat functionaries and grassroots workers of BJP to safe houses amid intelligence warnings about more attacks by Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The terror attacks on political functionaries had started in June with the killing of Congress sarpanch Ajay Pandita in Anantnag on June 8. A month later, senior BJP functionary Sheikh Waseem Bari, his father and brother were shot dead in Bandipora district.
BJP isn't the only party battling resignations. On Friday, a 60-year-old Congress sarpanch from Sopore in north Kashmir's Baramulla resigned citing his inability to continue as an office-bearer of the party while "constantly fearing for my life".