SRINAGAR: After the first wave of insurgency in 1989, young men in Kashmir are once again turning to arms. The locals are outnumbering what the security establishment refers to as ‘foreign terrorists’. In 2015, 66 locals joined militancy, up from the figure of 31 in 2013, a report in Hindustan Times said on Monday.

Why are Kashmiri youth – who made way for Pakistani-trained terrorists – coming into the forefront once again? What is fuelling this new breed of young, educated and tech-savvy militants?

The ground reality in Kashmir is changing slowly but surely and it can be gauged even from plain statistics. If in 2013, 31 local youths joined militancy, the number for 2015 (till September-end) jumped to 66, according to police records.

Among the 66 is 21-year-old Zakir Rashid Bhat, a Chandigarh-based civil engineering student. Zakir came to his village home in Noorpura, Pulwama, for a brief vacation with his friends. The young student took them to the snow-clad picture towns of Gulmarg and Pahalgam and while his friends went back to Chandigarh, Zakir never returned.

His father, Engineer Rashid woke up to a note that said, “Don’t try and look for me. Jehad is the only way forward. It is the only way to deal with the atrocities faced by Kashmiris."

Rashid, a senior engineer with a government job, had heaved a sigh of relief when his youngest son Zakir had got admission in an engineering college. The older son was a practising doctor and his daughter an MSc in botany.

Young Zakir, remembered in Noorpura as a boy who loved driving his Yamaha motorcycle at high speeds, finally joined the ranks of the Hizbul Mujahideen and is now part of a video that shows his transformation: A boy fond of clothes and chocolates grows into a new role in which he is sporting a long beard and is seen caressing an automatic weapon.

Zakir joined the ranks of Burhan Wani, a young Robin Hood-like figure who has become a role model for Kashmiri youth and appears to be firing their imagination. Burhan dropped out of class 10 and literally knocked on the doors of the Hizbul Mujahideen at the young age of 15 after his brother Khalid was killed by security forces.

Lt Gen Satish Dua, Corps Commander, 15 Corps, and the most senior Indian army officer in the Valley, says, “The new strategy is to recruit locals and give them rudimentary training in the hinterland because the adversary (Pakistan) is not able to push terrorists across the line of control.’’

Is the trend worrying? Says Dua, “60% of the Valley’s population is below the age of 30 and we have to ensure engagement with the youth, especially with shrinking job avenues.”

The demographic bulge comprising the youth is hyperactive on social media and for Dua, this is a grave concern. The new militant brigade led by Burhan – unlike the youth who took to gun in 1989 – is unafraid of revealing their identity.

“They make their names and faces known and their outreach is wide," says Dua, implying that the social media has become a fertile recruitment ground. Agrees Tejinder Singh, Pulwama’s Superintendent of Police, who says, “The videos are affecting the psychology of Kashmiri youth who spend hours watching videos uploaded by local militants and by Islamic State. Their only role models are militants with guns like Burhan. We haven’t been able to provide them with alternative role models."

There is another crucial factor as pointed out by former chief minister and National Conference (NC) patron, Farooq Abdullah. “Everyone is feeling choked because the political system has failed to deliver. The youth are looking at the nation very carefully and because they are educated, they first become militant in their minds."

Farooq points directly to how the beef debate and the cow protection movement are dividing the nation and how the youth are reacting to the rise of the Right wing.

His son and former chief minister Omar Abdullah goes a step further to link the new trend of locals becoming militants to the alliance between the PDP and the BJP in the state.

“The PDP with its slogan of self-rule filled a gap that existed between the NC and the separatists but after they tied up with the ultra-nationalist BJP, the space has shrunk even more for the youngsters who have gravitated towards militancy.”

In several villages across South Kashmir that HT visited, people expressed their reservations about the alliance and were apprehensive about the dilution of Article 370 which gives the state special powers.

Mohammad Ikhlaq, lynched in Dadri on mere suspicion of consuming beef and Zahid Ahmed, a Kashmiri trucker who was attacked in Udhampur, again on mere suspicion, have become household names across the Valley.

Warned a senior police officer who did not want to be named, “The utterances of senior BJP leaders are having a direct impact on the ground situation here. Beef was never an issue here and is hardly consumed but after the Haryana chief minister told Muslims they could live in India provided they stopped eating it, anger is growing and people are fearing the rise of the BJP."

The officer pointed to a survey the local police has undertaken in which it was found that the locality mosques were becoming congregation points in which Maulvis were holding animated discussions on the threat to Islam and Kashmiriyat.

The ground beneath Kashmir’s feet is indeed slipping.

Families of youth who have opted to wage a battle to ‘liberate’ Kashmir are either openly supportive of their sons or have found a way to justify it.

Muzaffar Wani, Burhan’s father is proud – very proud – that his son has become a rallying point. “He became a militant not only because he was oppressed but because he saw so many others being oppressed by the army. He couldn’t take it anymore…"