The officer said he had information that Dar’s son Shakoor, 21, had joined the anti-Indian insurgency in Kashmir, the long-disputed Himalayan territory enduring its worst outbreak of violence in years. Shakoor’s parents learned that he had joined Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based militant group that has waged attacks inside India for three decades. In recent months, Indian forces have quelled the protests in southern Kashmir and intensified the hunt for militants in villages, triggering bloody firefights. A week later, Indian forces cordoned off a small village 35 miles away where a group of militants were reportedly meeting. “You must check.”The next morning both she and Shakoor’s father, Dar, rode to the village of Awneera, where a gunfight was raging.

Source: Los Angeles Times August 28, 2017 10:01 UTC