14th February Black Day: 5th anniversary of Pulwama Attack, Unveiling the Remembrance and Lessons from the Pulwama Attack Tragedy

He was raised in the Pulwama district of Indian-administered Kashmir, the scene of the attack. Pulwama is a component of the Anantnag constituency, which is the only seat in the Indian election that will have three separate phases of voting, the final one being held on May 6, due to security concerns.

When his parents filed a missing person’s report for him in March of last year, Dar had dropped out of high school and was working odd jobs as a mason.

He was twenty-two and quiet and reserved by all accounts. According to his relatives, he became increasingly enraged with the Indian government after sustaining injuries during a protest in 2016 over the assassination of a well-known terrorist.

Dar was one of hundreds of Kashmiris who were raised under the gun’s shadow and eventually perished in it.

Since 1989, there has been an armed uprising against Indian control in Kashmir, a region with a majority of Muslims. India accuses Pakistan of encouraging militancy in the area and inciting violence;

Pakistan refutes this claim. Over 70,000 individuals have died in Kashmir’s recurring violent events since 1989, majority of whom were Kashmiri Hindus who were the focus of militants in the early 1990s.

Indian practices, according to critics, have alienated young people in the area. According to a UN assessment, Indian security forces used excessive force, including shooting pellet guns at people, blinding hundreds of people in the area between June 2016 and April 2018. India disagreed with the report’s conclusions.

“Those who were born in Kashmir after the 1990s have never experienced peace,” claims 68-year-old Pulwama resident Abdul Ahad Bhat. “They were born amid curfews and died before they ended.”

According to Mr. Bhat, the Kashmir he knew prior to 1989 is a “dream” that has been denied to this generation.

After a downturn in the 2000s, the valley saw a resurgence of militant activity following the 2016 assassination of teenage militant commander Burhan Wani. And since then, it has been getting worse. According to official statistics, 150 suspected militants killed in 2016 and over 230 died in 2018.

Wani used social media very frequently. While many people saw him as a symbol of the new Kashmiri generation, India saw him as a terrorist. Protests swept the valley when he was murdered in a gunfight with Indian security forces.

Security forces fired tear gas and live shots at protesters, resulting in hundreds of injuries and many deaths. Pellets also caused blindness in many. Participating in the protests, Adil Ahmad Dar was wounded in the leg and spent eleven months in bed.

According to his father, Ghulam Hassan Dar, 62, “that day changed him.” “A shy boy transformed into a volcano of anger but he rarely expressed it.”

Like other residents, he thinks a large number of the men and boys who demonstrated against Wani’s death wound up joining the rebel cause.

During his recuperation, Adil Ahmad Dar read online and prayed more than he did with his pals. In March 2018, he fled his house to join the militants.