What it takes to be a student in Kashmir

The ongoing violence in the Valley is driving students to excel, but it is also making them angry

“I am used to my father being in jail,” says Sama Shabir, a separatist leader’s daughter who topped the recent CBSE Class XII exams in Jammu and Kashmir. The humanities student grew up accustomed to visiting her father Shabir Shah in various prisons across the state. But when the founder and president of the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party was locked up in New Delhi’s Tihar jail last year, it was traumatic for Sama, her mother and younger sister.

“In Tihar, he is being kept like a criminal, although he is a political prisoner. It was very disturbing to know