LOCKING AND LOADING

Escalation is imminent, and multiple arms of the government are on the task

- BY BADAR BASHIR AND NAMRATA BIJI AHUJA

A BROKEN CONCRETE slab tangled with destroyed wooden planks is what remains of Ahsan ul-Haq Sheikh's house. A few steps away, his aunt Imtiaza's house stands upright, but has visible damage.

“There was a thunderous blast,” said Imtiaza, “which shook the neighbourhood houses and shattered all our windows.”

Sheikh is one of the 13 people whose houses were razed after security forces cracked down on Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives in the wake of the Pahalgam attack. The police has cordoned off Sheikh's colony—about 50 houses—in Pulwama district's Murran village. It is about 30km from Srinagar.

The neighbours have not seen Sheikh for the past two years; police claim he joined the LeT in June 2023. Sheikh's paternal uncle, Mohammad Shafi, said Sheikh's parents had left the place after he did not return. “When he left, his mother's heart disease worsened,” he said. “God knows where they are.”

Sheikh, 23, had participated in protests after the killing of separatist leader Burhan Wani in 2016. “His parents tried so hard to reach out to him, but they could never know where he is,” said an elderly woman in the locality. Like in most such cases, the villagers know nothing more—once a boy disappears, they assume he has joined the militants or has been killed.

Police say the average lifespan of a terror recruit is six months to a year. Once he carries out a terrorist act, he is chased by security forces and many a time he is offered up by terror masters who spill blood to keep the pot boiling.