Homes turned to rubble, Kashmiri militants’ families question ‘collective punishment’

The Ganie family is not unfamiliar with security forces knocking on their door at odd hours – especially after their 26-year-old son joined the ranks of Kashmiri militants two years ago.

But on the night of April 25, something seemed amiss.

“The Army came around 12.30 in the night and asked us to take shelter in the local mosque,” said Aisha Begum, a resident of Mutalhama village in Kulgam district. “Initially, we thought they had come to search the house. But [we realised] that they had already moved our neighbours out of their homes. We were the last to be evacuated.”

Around two hours later, they heard a huge blast. When the first light broke on April 26, the Ganie family’s mud-and-brick house was rubble. “What we are wearing is the only thing we could retrieve,” Begum said.

Two days before, a group of terrorists had gunned down 25 tourists and a Kashmiri on the Baisaran meadows in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district.

The Pahalgam strike was the deadliest attack on tourists in Kashmir’s history. By targeting tourists, security officials in Kashmir told Scroll, “terrorists had crossed a red line”.

The attack prompted massive anti-militancy operations across Kashmir Valley along with a crackdown on the families of militants, former overground workers of militant groups...

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