Kashmir militant releases video, vows to establish caliphate

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, August 26

Copying the style of global Islamist movements, Burhan Muzafar Wani, a young militant commander in Kashmir, has released a rare video statement in which he makes a call to arms and vows to fight for the establishment of caliphate.

The six-minute video which features Burhan is being circulated via mobile messenger applications and social networking sites. It also shows two militants standing guard as Burhan sits with an assault rifle and a copy of the Koran in front of him and urges youth to pick up arms. 

The video has been released by the same unit of militants in south Kashmir who had earlier circulated their unmasked pictures and a brief video posing with guns in an orchard. Burhan is leading a growing number of new-age militants in south Kashmir.

Burhan’s video message to the region’s youth, clerics and policemen hints at a drift in the ideology of Kashmiri militants from a localised anti-India rhetoric to a broader pan-Islamist agenda of establishing a caliphate, the cause espoused by the Al-Qaida and Islamic State.

“Leaving our homes, our families, the comforts of world and sacrificing our future, we have come into the field of action so that the honour of our mothers and sisters is safeguarded, so that a caliphate is established in Kashmir,” Burhan, 21, said in the video. “We will not stop until a caliphate is established over the entire world.”

Burhan is the divisional commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen in south Kashmir, which makes him in charge of the militant organisation’s affairs in at least four districts.