Kashmir's millennials are taking on heavily-armed forces to save militants

Countless young people in Kashmir view local militants as the only ones willing to fight for them

It was a typically warm July evening in Kashmir. I was at my home in Zaldagar, a tightly-packed neighbourhood in downtown Srinagar. I was about five years old. My cousins had come over that day, there were a lot of people in the house. We were playing outside underneath a chinar tree. That’s when the distinct – but not unusual, in those days – sound of gunfire changed the mood all of a sudden. Within a few seconds, my uncle rushed out and carted us kids back inside. Everyone had been bundled together in the kitchen. Nobody knew what was