Atta Mohammad Khan, 65, doesn’t know the dead or their names. He remembers them by the ‘bullet wounds and torture marks’. After burying over 230 unknown people, Khan, the lone caretaker of Chachal graveyard in Uri’s Bimbyar village is an exhausted man. His old eyes have lost sight, yet a look into the past makes tears roll. These tears that shine on his cheeks hold the secret to the unmarked graves where nameless dead dubbed as militants lay buried.

From a year-old girl to people as...

At about 9.30 on Wednesday night, Mohammad Ashraf Dar quietly ventured out of his house in ChanKhan locality of Sopore town. But, his mother saw him talking on cellular phone while moving out. “We presumed that he was talking to his fiancee,” says a family member. Dar the eldest among three siblings, including two sisters, had been engaged last week and had plans to solemnize his marriage in near future.
  At about 10.15, the silent night was broken by a volley of...

Last year on 9 May, amid the din of cheering friends and tearful relatives, 39-year-old Mirza Iftikhar Hussain walked slowly into his ancestral Srinagar home after nearly 14 years. The handicrafts dealer got pats on his shoulder, winks and hugs. Behind his back, he was the subject of ‘do-you-recognise-him’ remarks.

“Those who were kids all those years ago took time to recognise me,” says Hussain. “It wasn’t a problem for the elders though. They had waited 14 summers for my...

The Sun of July 13, 1931 attested the truth in Margaret Maed's saying, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

Kashmir is a land of incredible beauty, which has been praised by all and sundry. However, unfortunately, Kashmiris have, throughout their history, been at the receiving end. Kashmir's history is replete with incidents of inhumane and tyrannical oppression of the hapeless and gullible people...