Why a growing number of Kashmiri youth are picking up guns

Sajad Ahmad Beigh, a 23-year-old herder from south Kashmir’s Shopian district, left his home with a flock of sheep into the nearby woods on a summer afternoon early last month. He never returned. A week later, his brother Khurshed Ahmad was informed by the Indian army officers that Sajad was shot dead in a gunfight in Sugg village, 4km (2.5 miles) away from his home. “He was very young. We had no idea what happened to him,” Khursheed, Sajad’s brother, told Al Jazeera. “It was not a thing he would discuss. We had…

Read More