Young Educated Blood Joins Kashmir Resistance

In this struggle for freedom, Kashmir has sacrificed its cream – the top level brilliant minds, in the initial stages as well as today, and this will go on until there are no traces of Indian occupation in Kashmir.

A number of young and educated militants were martyred in recent gunfights, including those with engineering and postgraduate degrees, thereby starting a heated debate in the government and intelligence offices. Everybody now seems bothered about the pushing forces behind their inclusion in the militant ranks. ‘Why are the educated ones joining the militant ranks’ is the question raised by everyone. How come this new trend is pushing the gears? What is the reason behind all this?

Some officials from the government ranks blame religious education for all this, others blame the booming scenario of unemployment in the valley, while yet others blame family feuds or provide other vague reasons.

The theory that unemployment and economic needs thrust Kashmir’s youth into militant ranks does not always hold true. The Police and Intelligence officials say increasingly that it is the mind, not money that prompts educated youngsters to join the militant ranks: they fall in love with a cause, adopt it, and die for it. Likewise, all the other theories of family feuds and stress also do not hold true in such cases. It is the idea of freedom in their mind that occurs as a resultant of repeated encounters of their raped sisters, tortured, maimed old and young, widows, half widows, orphans, killed by the Indian democracy. It is the thirst for freedom that they want to quench and which is the only reason and motivation behind their joining the armed struggle.

A few months back, in June 2013, Chief Minister J&K Omar Abdullah said, “Educated youth joining militant ranks is a cause of concern.”

Speaking to media persons on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony of J&K Police at SKICC, he said that it was a worrying issue that militants killed in recent gunfights were well-qualified.

“What did they think while joining militant ranks, what they were thinking, we have to work on it,” Omar said.
He also said that most of these militants had passed out of the Islamic University of Science and Technology, Awantipora and the University of Kashmir, and the least educated among them were 12^th standard pass outs.

On being asked whether the youth were turning to militancy due to alienation, Omar said that alienation was not a new thing.

“We will have to look into the reasons and motivation of these youth to join militant ranks,” he said, adding that the recruitment of local youth in militant ranks is very little.

Educated youth in the militant ranks:

Pertinently, there is a rise in young educated boys joining the militant ranks, even if it is not a new trend as portrayed by government officials. With the brisk rate in attaining martyrdom by some of the well-educated militants, the government and military officials were dumbfounded by this increasing graph of educated youth joining militant ranks.

• Rafiq Ahmad Ahangar, an engineering graduate having done his  B.Tech, was martyred in a gunfight at Ari Parigam, Pulwama;
• Masiullah Khan, a mechanical engineer in his early 20s, was martyred in South Kashmir;
• Sajad Yousuf Mir alias Tajamul Islam, a Hizbul Mujahideen militant in his late 20s, had dropped out from an MCA course after doing an MA in Islamic Studies and was martyred in Pulwama;
• Omar Ahsan, 22, an MA Physics student was martyred in Sopore;
• Mohammad Ibrahim, 20, was martyred in Pattan;
• Lashkar-e-Toiba militant Hilal Ahmad Rather, 28, was a scholar in Islamic Law from Deoband;
• while Muzamil Amin and another martyred LeT militant were in their mid-20s. And the list goes on…