The orchards across south Kashmir are lush green as it is summer season now and a pleasing fragrance makes the rural landscape here distinct from the region’s crowded and polluted urban neighbourhoods. Amidst this picturesque landscape of Shopian district, militants lurk in shadows, gathering in large numbers in the shade of orchards where they click pictures and shoot videos. Here they are protected by a shield of sympathetic civilians even as the ‘nationalist versus Islamist’ debate has divided the separatist movement into two camps. In the villages of Shopian, many…
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