Five labourers from Bengal were abducted and killed on Tuesday in a south Kashmir village, the biggest suspected militant attack on non-Kashmiris in years coming on a day a group of members of the European Parliament reached the Valley on a two-day trip.

Showkat Aijaz, the deputy commissioner of Kulgam, told The Telegraph the victims were from Murshidabad in Bengal.

He identified the victims as Qamar ud din Sheikh, Mursaleen Sheikh, Rafeeq Sheikh, Nayeem ul Sheikh and Rafiq Sheikh, all from Sagardighi in Murshidabad. An injured person has been identified as Zahoor ud din Sheikh.

“Five labourers putting up in Katrasoo (3km from Kulgam town) have been found shot dead. One injured has been shifted to a Srinagar hospital,” Aijaz said.

“They were put up in a rented room and abducted before being shot some 200 metres from the place,” the officer added.

The attack took place around 7.30pm on Tuesday, when the European MPs were wrapping up the first day of their visit.

Since the Centre’s decision on Article 370 and the accompanying clampdown, militants have been targeting non-local fruit traders, truckers and labourers.

On Monday evening, militants had shot dead a fruit-truck driver, Narayan Dutt of Reasi district of Jammu province, in the Kanilwan Bijbehara area of south Kashmir’s Anantnag district.

With Tuesday’s killings, the death toll of non-local persons associated with the fruit trade has touched 11.

This was the sixth attack on non-local truckers, fruit dealers and labourers in three weeks in south Kashmir.