The five bloodied bodies that the police brought after they were shot dead by terrorists sent shivers down my spine,” said Lutfar Shaikh of Kararichandpur village in Kaliachak-II in Malda district, as he arrived home from Kashmir, where he worked in an apple orchard.

Mr Shaikh is the only worker from Malda among the 138 workers from across West Bengal who returned home from Kashmir, following government help, yesterday.

The sexagenarian worker is registered with the labour department and he had been working in Kashmir for the past 20 years.

As he reached home this morning, Mr Shaikh recounted the horror and panic in the area in Kashmir where he lived, following the coldblooded and ruthless murder of five daily wage earners hailing from West Bengal by terrorists in Baramullah on 29 October.

“We were so shocked and panic-stricken that we decided to return home as soon as we saw the five bodies killed by militants in Baramulla,” Mr Shaikh said.

“The earlier environment in the valley that I had seen in my 20 years of work there is gone now, and the situation is bad, while others working there are also looking forward to return homes,” he added.

It is learnt that hundreds of daily wage earners from Kaliachak I, II and III blocks go to Kashmir for work in orchards or winter garment factories every year. Mr Shaikh said he lived in a rented house in Kanespur in Baramulla district, very near to where workers from Murshidabad also lived.

“We came to know that five of them had been kidnapped, and later, the police brought their bodies to the area in a pool of blood. I had never imagined that I would see such a sight in my lifetime there,” he said.

“There is a shortage of labourers there, so many men from Kaliachak go there for a better earning. We earn seven to eight hundred rupees in a single day working in the orchards or winter garment production units,” he added.

A gram panchayat member of Kaliachak-II, Mohammed Salauddin Shaikh, said over 100 youths had gone to Kashmir for work, while the two sons of Lutfur Shaikh had returned earlier. “These men work deftly in Kashmir, so they are in demand, but to work there putting one’s life at risk is not possible any longer,” he said.