From ‘Haider’ To Lashkar: How A Child Actor From Kashmir Fell Prey To Terrorist Propaganda 

Three militants were killed in an 18 hour-long gunbattle in Srinagar’s Mujgund on Sunday, two of them being minors brainwashed by terrorist propaganda, 15-year-old Mudasir Parray and Saqib Bilal. The third one was identified as Pakistani militant commander, Ali Bhai, reports News18.

Both the boys left home three months ago to join the Jihadi terror outfir, Lashkar-e-Taiba. The boys used to play football at the Hajin’s Eidgah regularly. A fellow football player, Umar says that on 31 August, Mudasir was playing football when Saqib joined him and they left never to be found again. Their families searched for them, even in a militancy hotbed in south Kashmir, but were for nought.

Hajin, who saw pics of these kids brandishing AK-47 rifles on the internet , said he was shocked at the transformation of the football playing kids to militants. The town has been a former bastion of Ikhwan, a pro-government militia aimed at counter-insurgency.

Saqib was a good student who had even acted in a cameo role in the film “Haider”, a film that is ironically about the Kashmir conflicts. His father, Bilal Ahmed Sheikh, says that the boy had an interest in engineering and never talked about militancy. Their house is located opposite the slain Ikhwan commander Kukka Parray, known for defeating militants.

Mudasir’s story too is similar. He worked as a labourer to support his family, apart from studying. Rasheed Ahmad Parray, his father describes him as a hardworking boy who gave the earned money to his mother.

But the signs were detected early on when the proud neighbours who watched him play football, hoping he would be a great football player, got shocked in 2016 when he got arrested in a stone-throwing case. Lodged for a week in the police station, he was asked to be counselled and let go by the police to his dad. Rashid feels that his son joined militancy after the death of their relative, the 19-year-old Abid Hamid Mir in 2017. Mudasir who visited the encounter site the next day must have felt that he too must join militancy as he was attached to Abid, says his dad. Rasheed believes it was his son’s choice to die like this.

International laws state “conscripting or enlisting children into armed forces or groups constitutes a war crime in both international and non-international armed conflicts.” However, from Africa to Middle East to Kashmir, the Islamic fundamentalists have been targeting minors for recruitment.