How A School Swimming Pool Became A Battlefield In Kashmir

What began as weekend swims turned into a fight over bribes and power that still shadows the school’s gatesz

- Ansar Hussain Dar

In a serene schoolyard in Harwan, a village on the northern edge of Srinagar, a simple swimming pool has become the centre of a corruption investigation that is now making its way through the region's anti-graft offices.

For years, the pool at Scholars School had been a peaceful gathering place. On weekends, former students would return to the school to swim under the summer sky, a ritual that brought them back to the classrooms and courtyards where they had once studied.