In 2010, two ‘unknown’ militants, carrying a bag of weapons, entered a house in North Kashmir’s Sopore town. The ultras made a dangerous request. They wanted their weapons to be hidden. Refusal wasn’t an option, complying has led to unending spell of arrests and trouble for the Dar family in the apple town.

Today, students of University of Kashmir protested in the campus against yet another tragedy that has befallen them. Their youngest son Munazir Ahmad Dar, a commerce student at...

IT ISN’T every day that you meet a man who has donned the hat of a militant, an uncompromising protest-organiser for separatist groups, a goldsmith and a reform-minded sarpanch. Abdul Rashid Zargar (55) of Daraha Sangla village in Poonch district’s Surankote area is such a man.

With Kashmir riven in a spate of sarpanch killings, Zargar’s transformation from being a separatist militant to a reformist needs to be read as more than just a freak case: it is an indication of how a growing...

As the lease of the Valley’s one of the biggest meadow – Tosa Maidan— located in central Kashmir’s Budgam district to the Indian Army nears an end this December, people living in adjoining areas are demanding an immediate removal of the firing range from the area.

Tosa Maidan situated in the Himalayan range and surrounded by dense forests, is believed to have been used by the Mughals to reach the valley of Poonch.

“If we construct a new house, we have to repair it only after one...

Pain united the two women. The pain was that of separation. Years ago their sons disappeared. And for years they searched for them together. When Mugli, often called the lonely mother of Kashmir, was in her last hours of life, she made Parveena Ahanger to promise - to continue searching for her son.

These women are part of the tragic landscape of Kashmir. Their sons and husbands were taken away in the night, from the markets, homes and streets. Many years after the men are among the...