New ultras more educated, but less trained

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, August 9

The character of insurgency in Kashmir is rapidly changing with the induction of local youth who are less trained and poorly equipped than their predecessors but come with more good educational backgrounds.

The new militants are locally trained and poorly equipped and none of them has undergone the rigorous guerrilla training or gained expertise in firing assault rifles and bomb-making – which their predecessors did.

The distinction that draws the new militants apart, however, is their educational background. The new militants include PhDs, MPhils, MBAs, post-graduates and graduates.

Khurshid Ahmad Malik of Pulwama district was killed in a gunfight last week. He had a degree in engineering, qualified Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) and days after his killing, his name had appeared in the selection list of sub-inspectors in the state police.

“The day he left home on July 31, he said he will go to submit the form for the Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS) but he did not return. Four days later his body returned. We are completely shocked,” Qayoom Malik, militant’s elder brother, told The Tribune.

He said Khurshid never gave any indication that he will become a militant. “We tried to convince him to surrender when he was trapped, but he refused,” he said.

Malik was the sixth militant killed this year who had studied engineering. The other militants with engineering background include Srinagar’s Eisa Fazili and Kokernag’s Syed Owais who were killed in March, Pulwama’s Musavir Wani who was killed in April and two of the four militants killed in June in Anantnag also had BTech degrees.

According to police data, the youth who became militants in last two years have included two with PhDs, two MPhils, four postgraduates and 10 with various graduate degrees.

Lack guerrilla training

The new militants are locally trained and poorly equipped and none of them has undergone the rigorous guerrilla training or gained expertise in firing assault rifles and making bombs which their predecessors did.