![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/05\/1-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
A dozen odd shoes lying at the entrance of Bhat\u2019s home indicated that mourners continue to visit the family. A lanky boy leads me to a dimly lit room, where a group of elderly men are chatting in a hushed tone. One of them, a burly man in a white beard and sturdy hands identifies himself as Abdul Rahim, father of Bhat. The pain of losing his son is writ large upon his face. Rahim is withdrawn, he is lost in a soliloquy that only he can hear, as if he is cut off from the world around himself. Slowly, he takes out his mobile phone and calls someone. After five minutes, a middle-aged man arrives in the room. He is Bhat\u2019s brother, Imtiyaz Ahmad.<\/p>\n
Imtiyaz is visibly angry. He doesn\u2019t want to be interviewed. \u201cI have lost my brother. That is all,\u201d Imtiyaz says. After lot of persuasion, he talks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey played a cruel joke on us. They played with our emotions. We were called to persuade Dr saeb <\/em>(his doctorate brother Raafi), but then they had ended it all before we could reach him,\u201d says Imtiyaz referring to the horrific events of May 6 when police had called the family to ask Raafi to surrender.<\/p>\n On Sunday, May 6, Bhat had received an early morning call. The voice from the other end was of a person they were longing to hear for two days. It was their Raafi, who had been missing for 48 hours after he had gone mysteriously missing from the KU campus, where he used to teach, in order to become a militant. Nobody had a whiff of this — not even his family, friends or his students.<\/p>\n Raafi, on the other end of the phone call, broke the news to his father that he had joined the militants \u2013 an information that was enough to make the family edgy and unsettled. \u201cForgive me if I ever harmed you,\u201d Rahim recalls his son\u2019s last words to him.<\/p>\n The day before, the family had lodged a missing report at Nigeen police station through Kashmir University officials, after failing to locate Raafi. \u201cWe called his friends and acquaintances. We searched for him in hospitals apprehending he might have met with an accident,\u201d says Imtiyaz gesturing to his father to control his emotions.<\/p>\n Imtiyaz adds though, that they cannot be sure Rafi would have surrendered if the family was allowed to reach him one last time and if the encounter had been delayed for some time. Imtiyaz simply consoles himself saying it was \u201cdestined\u201d for his brother. \u201cIt was at around 8:30 in the morning that we received a call from SSP Ganderbal asking us to reach Shopian to ask Raafi to surrender,\u201d says Imtiyaz.<\/p>\n From November last year, official records show 11 boys have shunned the gun and returned to their homes. This, a counterinsurgency officer says, has been possible only through family support.<\/p>\n The Bhat family last Sunday had left home on a 70- kilometre journey from their village to Shopian, \u2018in search of hope\u2019. \u201cMy father, mother and sister were all there in a car when we came to know that he had been killed. We had barely reached Srinagar when we were ripped apart by this news,\u201d says Imtiyaz.<\/p>\n The \u201ctraumatised\u201d family could reach Shopian at around 11:30 in the morning. \u201cWe were stopped seven kilometres ahead of the encounter site at Zainapora by the forces and taken to the area\u2019s police station, where we were shown his dead body at 1pm,\u201d says an upset Imtiyaz.<\/p>\n What has also left them aghast is that they were \u201cforced to remain with the dead body at Zainapora police station for more than three hours\u201d. \u201cIt was traumatic to remain with his lifeless body — my father, mother and sister were all wailing and there was no one to console us,\u201d says Imtiyaz.<\/p>\n The Bhat family was eventually allowed to return home with Mohammad Raafi Bhat\u2019s lifeless body along with police escort. \u201cWe were not even allowed to mourn freely,\u201d says Imtiyaz, now leaving the room.<\/p>\n [When I talked to Inspector General of Police, Kashmir, SP Pani, he said that in encounter situations things are not entirely under the control of security forces. \u201cWe tried to involve his (Raafi\u2019s) family and even our SP tried to speak to the militants. But then there was firing from their side,\u201d he said, adding \u201cnobody wants casualties\u201d.]<\/p>\n Everyone in the room falls silent and mournful. Before I leave, I enquire about Bhat\u2019s wife. An elderly person tells me her name \u2013 Iqra. \u201cShe left for her parents\u2019 home in Srinagar yesterday. She is distraught and not in a condition to talk,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The entire Chunduna village is still shocked by Raafi\u2019s death and perturbed about his joining the militant ranks.<\/p>\n A villager from Chunduna says they have been known as \u201cGaddar gaam<\/em>\u201d (a local term used for those not participating in anti-India protests). All of a sudden with one militant from the village, they now they find presence in the valley\u2019s militancy map. \u201cEven during 2016, no one from the village was injured since no protests occurred here. Such feelings don\u2019t prevail in this village,\u201d says Farooq Ahmad War, a neighbour.<\/p>\n When many in the valley complain that suppression from the forces often drive them towards taking up guns, Raafi had never shown any inclination towards guns, except once in 2000, says War. At that time he was a school boy. \u201cIt was childish on his part. He had gone away saying he would join the militants. His parents got him back. You know how silly kids can be,\u201d War explains.<\/p>\n Official records paint a grim picture of the valley\u2019s current scenario. In the first four months of this year alone, 45 youths have joined militancy. Over a hundred people have been killed in militancy related operations including 53 militants, 33 civilians, 14 policemen, 13 army men and one political activist.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody knows why he suddenly left and chose to take up the gun,\u201d says Javaid Ahmad Shah, Raafi\u2019s childhood friend.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Shah says his friend Raafi was among the first doctorates in the entire village. \u201cHe was a good human being. He would spend all his salary and scholarship money on people in need of money. Many people in this village will tell you how he would offer them financial help,\u201d Shah tells me near Raafi\u2019s grave covered with a green flag and flowers.<\/p>\n Shah tells me he is not financially well off and earns a meagre sum working all day at crewing buses at the village bus stop. \u201cHe used to help me. Last Friday, he gifted me a pair of new shoes. He had a certain intuition \u2013 even though I never told him if I needed something, he would always get to know,\u201d says Shah, wiping tears, sitting by the side of his friend\u2019s grave.<\/p>\n Around this time, a skinny boy with thin beard watches us from a distance. He identifies himself as Rafiq.<\/p>\n Rafiq says he had a \u201cstrong bond\u201d with Raafi. \u201cHe was a teacher par excellence \u2013 a quiet but highly intelligent man. A week before he died, he asked me about my plans to do my Master\u2019s degree,\u201d he said, adding that he had lost a mentor.<\/p>\n Political analyst and journalist Gowhar Geelani says that the phenomenon of educated young boys joining militants is not new in Kashmir. He links this phenomenon of educated young boys with promising careers joining militancy to the \u201cshrinking of political space\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cSince 2008, we have seen the transition from guns to peaceful protests. It was a choice of the people.\u00a0 But then the state has been equally brutal and tried to crush this peaceful dissidence,\u201d says Geelani.<\/p>\n He says: \u201cshrinkage of political space for even expressing legitimate political views is also deemed as militant and isn\u2019t allowed\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is now Kashmir\u2019s fourth generation which is educated and conscious. So, in Kashmir even militancy is politics. These youths are not battle hardened. It is an expression of making a political statement,\u201d says Geelani.<\/p>\n Geelani adds that militancy is Kashmir is being \u201coverplayed\u201d. \u201cIn a population of over 70 lakh, a mere figure of 200 militants is not alarming. It is a propaganda of some agencies to portray Kashmir\u2019s present political struggle as radicalisation, he says.<\/p>\n With the Centre announcing Ramadan ceasefire, there are hopes that blood won\u2019t be spilled and coffins won\u2019t be carried on shoulders for at least a month, but analysts believe \u201cKashmir is a cancer that needs a permanent cure, not a temporary relief\u201d.<\/p>\n Dusk falls on picturesque Chunduna, nestled around paddy fields and snow-clad mountains, making it look mesmerising.<\/p>\n It was time to go. It would be night, and perhaps, soon, the morning rays of the following day would be able to remove the darkness altogether.<\/p>\n (Cover picture of\u00a0Mohammad Raafi Bhat courtesy Ubeer Naqushbandi)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the first four months of this year, 45 youths have joined militancy and over 100 people have been killed in militancy related operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,9],"tags":[],"tmauthors":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-665","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editors-choice","8":"category-nation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665"},{"taxonomy":"tmauthors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tmauthors?post=665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/05\/Raafis-childhood-friend-Javaid-Ahmad-Shah-near-his-grave-at-Chunduna-in-Ganderbal.picUbeer-Naqushbandi.jpg\")