Srinagar August 08: Many people including some professors have been found for recruiting local youth for joining militancy in Kashmir.
Sources within the security agencies say that innocent people have been victimized in lieu of financial dole outs from Pakistan.
“It is indeed devastating to learn that a professor in Kashmir University—highest seat of learning in the Valley—is indoctrinating people into the dark world of extremism,” they said.
“Despite drawing a fat salary, the professor was engaged in recruiting Kashmiris for indoctrinating purposes, wholly and solely at the behest of handlers in Pakistan. Blessed with three children, he has no remorse in devastating lives of other parents, but the greed for pecuniary benefits and the fame people like him crave for through dubious means eggs him on to look out for credulous youth who are easily fooled by the bunkum belted out sentimentally and emotionally to turbocharge the mind and conscience of the victims,” sources said.
Owner of a 3 storey residential house, an Educational Institute and some fertile land, he ended up successfully radicalizing a youth from Chadoora Budgam.
“The youth from Budgam was first recruited in 1996 when militancy was at its peak in Kashmir. With a semblance of peace prevailing post 2000, he surrendered in 2007, however, not before he rejoined the same ranks in 2014,” they said.
Sources said that he was eventually neutralized in 2017 in Shopian. Being unmarried, he belonged to the weaker section of the society, an advantage cashed in on by the Pakistan backed recruiters while bringing him into the fold of militancy.
“The slain extremist was survived by aged parents and three brothers while his recruiter continues to bask in the glory of living with his family, happily,” they said.
Another recruiter surfacing on the synopsis here is an unemployed person where one can easily decipher his stand behind luring cashless youth towards militancy. Tale of Asif Srinagar is no different from the professor of Kashmir University when the modus operandi of recruitment is factored in. Invoking religion and doling out wads of cash is the common factor found in every recruiter and majority of their victims.
The youth pushed by him into the mouth of fire-emitting extremism is a 29-year-old young Turk who was happily running a crockery shop in uptown Srinagar. He joined LeT/TRF on 04 January 2021 after falling to the radicalizing discourse, the recruiter. Bilal left behind his parents and a brother who is working in Saudi Arabia, and joined the militant ranks in the dawning days of this year. While Asif made the promised money, the family of Bilal, in all likelihood, has to mourn his death, very soon as the lifespan of these militants runs in months, hardly.
Jameel Ahmad the recruiter—went to Pakistan for arms training. Coming from a well-off family Bandipora, Jameel didn’t return back and has been recruiting Kashmiri and Pakistani youth since then.
“Educationally, Jameel has a sound background as he was a lecturer. Jameel used to draw a handsome salary, however, the penchant for Pakistan had resulted him in recruitment of Abid. Seems Jameel had already cultivated great contacts in Pakistan as Abid left to the country in 2018 on the pretext of receiving higher education. However, he landed among the ranks of LeT courtesy Jameel and his sources in their home district. Abid gave two hoots to the life of his parents and a brother, and ended up ruining his life in one of the most destabilized and dangerous countries in the world,” they said.
It is pertinent to mention here that the common factors binding the three recruiters and their victims in the aforementioned details are: religion, radicalization, money and fame. Ideology is a dangerous thing. It becomes almost impossible to stop a person from stepping into madness once the seeds of ideological hatred are sown in his mind.
