The Rise of Burhan

By Aasif Sultan on 01/07/2018 @ 9:00 AM

By Aasif Sultan

When obituaries of Kashmir militancy had been written long back,

‘everything,’ in the words of Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat,
‘turned upside down in a few days time’ after the killing of Burhan Wani
on 8 July 2016. Since then more and more young boys are disappearing
into the woods to follow Burhan’s path. Why is Burhan proving more
dangerous in his grave than in his living room? Kashmir Narrator
revisits the young rebel’s life to know the answers

In 2013, a militant trapped in a cordon along with his two associates in south
Kashmir’s Tral makes his last wish in the signature last phone call minutes
before dying in a gun battle with government forces: ‘Tell Aarif Khan to pray
for my forgiveness.’

The unknown speaker on the other side did not hear clearly due to deafening
gunfire sound. Aarif Khan was the nom de guerre of a local militant who, in
next few years, would singlehandedly revive militancy in the Valley after it was
decimated many years ago.

To ensure that his last wish was realised, the dying militant, who was hit twice
during the gunfight, shouted: ‘Tell Burhan to pray for my forgiveness.’ 

Once the trapped militant, Aijaz Ahmad Bhat of Lurgam, Tral, received the
answer in affirmative, he gave the phone to his other associate and continued
the fight. By the end of the firefight, Aijaz and his two associates, Shabir
Ahmad Bhat of Hayina and Shahnawaz Ahmad Mir of Dadsara, were dead.

This was the first mention of militant commander Burhan Wani on social
media whose charismatic figure and novel techniques drew a new fault line in
the three-decade-long insurgency in Kashmir. As the Kashmiri youth began to
share the audio message on their Whatsapps and Facebook profiles, the
legend of Burhan Muzaffar Wani was born that would, ultimately, reach to the
World Parliament – the UN – at his death to be projected “as a symbol of
[Kashmir’s] intifada”.

“A dying militant’s last wish is very significant. People ask him to pray for them
during the last moments, while as here he is asking a living man to pray for
him,” says Muhammad, a close companion of Burhan who later served him as
one of his dozens of Over Ground Workers (OGWs).
 Burhan joined militancy as a teenager in 2010
This explains, Burhan’s trusted OGW tells me, the reverence of rebel
commanders and veterans towards teenager Burhan even when he was just a
foot soldier.

The little-known teenager Burhan overnight became the talk of the Tral town,
as people wished to know more about the young boy whom a dying rebel
wished to pray for his forgiveness.

In August 2013, a profile in the Guardian on Burhan and his new technique of

using social media to galvanise militant recruitments propelled his rebel
image. The newspaper inferred that with active use of cyberspace, the young
kid shall be instrumental in drawing fresh recruits to swell the militant ranks in
Kashmir.
In 2013 itself, Hizbul Mujahideen’s Divisional Commander for south Kashmir
and Burhan’s mentor and cousin, Adil Mir, was alive. Burhan took the reins of
Hizb following the killing of Mir along with his two associates in the 2014
summer.

Before taking the social media by a storm, Burhan would easily slink off the
battlefield and melt into local population. No one would have mistaken him for
a rebel as his teenage looks made it hard for one and all to believe that.

Up to mid-2013, there were passing references in media reports about

the teenage-son-of-a-school-principal joining militancy. Except for a news
report that erroneously claimed Burhan was killed in an encounter in Buchoo,
Tral on 24 May 2013, nothing was known about him. Interestingly, Kashmir
Uzma, a sister publication of Greater Kashmir, published Burhan’s picture on
its front page in 25 May 2013 edition, inferring that he was the rebel killed in
Buchoo encounter, though the text stated that Saifullah Ahangar was killed.

In August 2013, a profile in the Guardian on Burhan and his new technique of

using social media to galvanise militant recruitments propelled his rebel
image. The newspaper inferred that with active use of cyberspace, the young
kid shall be instrumental in drawing fresh recruits to swell the militant ranks in
Kashmir.

The Guardian was the first newspaper that profiled Burhan. Jason Burke, a

war reporter for the newspaper who covered Afghanistan and Iraq war, shot
Burhan to fame with a story on his techniques to glamorise militancy, says
Abdullah, another OGW of Burhan, who now lives a ‘normal life’ after cutting
all ties with militants after Burhan’s death.

No one knows when was Burhan’s first picture leaked on the internet. Though
there was an exchange of pictures locally through messaging apps even in
2010 itself, what triggered the move to publish them on Facebook and make
them viral remains a mystery.

The first picture that was uploaded on the web showed a young smiling
Burhan of 17 years of age with two AK-47 rifles in two hands and the third one
slung across.

“That picture was not noticed too much, but a year later, his another picture
used by the Guardian went viral,” says Abdullah. The picture showed Burhan
leaning nonchalantly against a tree while a bag lay at his feet.

Burhan had a battery of OGWs who were always at his beck and call. No one
but him knew how many he had. All were assigned different works: recharging
mobile phones, arranging funds, buying weapons, acting as couriers, etc.
But social media was not his only strength. Those who knew him since his
childhood tire not while narrating the tales of “his good character and lovable
nature.” 

“His strength was his character and his utmost cautiousness to not kill an

innocent person. His friends and foes loved him equally. Even the police
appreciated him, for he would tell his cadre to fight the Indians, not your own
people,” says Muhammad.

In March 2016, when one of Burhan’s men killed a woman in Noorpora village
of Tral, it’s said he took a strong exception to the killing.
 Burhan with this cousin and mentor Adil Mir
“There was a heated argument between Burhan and his associate who killed
her. Though the latter tried to convince him that the woman was ‘fit to be
killed’, Burhan clearly distanced himself from the act. He categorically told him
that he has not joined jihad to kill locals, even if they want to harm him,” says
Abdullah.

This he had imbibed from his mentor and cousin, Mir. He would tell his flock to
not kill civilians even if they spy on them. He had two things always close to
him: his rifle and the Qur’an, says Abdullah.

After Burhan left to woods in October 2010, Dadsara and Shariafabad villages
of Tral were in a flutter as the word had gone around that a 16-year-old son of
a high school principal had joined militants. But Burhan’s parents waited
patiently and thought maybe their son may return to home, says Abdullah.

“I remember when Burhan called his father for the first time after joining the
militant ranks,” Abdullah says. “His father asked him whether he satiated his
heart by roaming with militants for quite some days and is he planning to
return?”

Was Zakir then a mere extension of Mir and Burhan’s ideology? “Yeah, but
Adil Mir and Burhan were unlike Zakir. They had strong differences with
leadership but they did not want to throw it open. But then Zakir did what he
did and there was no one to guide him,” says Abdullah.
But the word surrender was not in Burhan’s dictionary, says Abdullah, as his
only wish was to play a long innings and recruit as many youth as possible for
militancy.

Nevertheless, Burhan had his times of hardship during his militant life. He had
to face a lot of trouble soon after he assumed the Hizb’s mantle in 2014 after
Mir was killed in the Buchoo encounter.

Local reports pointed the needle of suspicion towards two women from the
vicinity for tipping off the Special Operations Group of police about the
presence of Mir and his associates in the area. Also, Burhan and his
associates could not believe the fact that Mir, who a year earlier in 2013, killed
four soldiers in the same area, could have fallen “so cheaply”. But there was
no strong evidence to support the claim.

“Burhan made it amply clear that he will not kill the two women on mere
suspicion. He even said that even if he had proof that the duo were informers,
he shall not kill them and quoted Mir, whom he used to refer as Bhaigash, that
the fate of informers should be left to Allah for He shall give them their
recompense,” says Abdullah, who himself conversed with Burhan about the
matter.
But Burhan had to face a lot of problems after it was rumoured that Burhan
was a mole in the militant ranks, says Abdullah, adding that the police was
quite successful in “tarnishing his image for quite some time.”

“Those were the most disturbing moments for Burhan. When Bhaigash (Adil
Mir) was killed, something was eating Burhan up inside. And one day in 2014,
he exclaimed, ‘Waen wuch soorie, waen gasoo shaheed gasin! (Let me
become a martyr now, as I saw everything),” says Abdullah.

Abdullah believes that coincidence coupled with vicious police propaganda

propelled the idea of labelling “Burhan as a traitor.”

“Police milked some coincidences in which Pakistani militants were killed in

shootouts and Burhan would come alive miraculously. They planted the idea
that it is impossible to come out alive from such tight cordons except you work
hand in glove with the agencies,” says Abdullah.

Recalling one such incident, Abdullah says that Burhan along with Zakir Musa,
who had joined Hizb in 2013, and a Pakistani militant were ambushed by the
CRPF troopers at Tral bus stand. In the brief shootout, says Abdullah, the
Pakistani militant of Jaish outfit, who was called Arshid bhai, died
instantaneously while Burhan and Musa fled from the spot.

“Not only that, Musa took the dead Pakistani militant’s rifle before leaving the
place, as he had only an Insas rifle then and not an AK-47. And when police
saw only the dead body and not the weapon, they started the propaganda that
Burhan killed him during a group clash,” says Abdullah.

However, when Burhan’s brother Khalid Muzaffar Wani was “tortured to death”
by the army in April 2015, all allegations and speculations were put to rest.

Earlier, even Adil Mir was in a fix in similar situations. In one incident, when a
Pakistani militant was killed in a shootout while he and another local militant
escaped unhurt, Mir asked the Pakistani militant to speak about their
innocence before dying so that he may record his statement.

“But unfortunately the foreign militant died before he could record his
statement,” says Abdullah.

The propaganda was so vicious that the Pakistani cadres of Jaish-e-

Muhammad outfit parted their ways with Mir and his cadre and shifted their
base at a distant place in south Kashmir.

Mir, who took the reins of Hizb from commander Shabir Ahmad Bhat in 2013,
had a tough time with Pakistan-based militant leadership.  “Even though
Shabir was the commander, the brainchild behind the movement in Tral was
Mir. Trouble started for Mir even before he joined the militant ranks. When his
brother Naeem Mir, a B.Tech student from Awantipora’s Islamic University of
Science and Technology, was killed by forces in a gunfight, he did an
independent ‘survey’ and found a local man involved in tipping off the police,”
says Danish, a childhood friend of Mir, who remained aloof from all militant
activities.

All efforts to convince PaK-based militant leadership that the local had a hand
in Naeem Mir’s killing could not fructify, says Danish. “When people sitting
across the border did not buy Mir’s argument, he decided to take the matter
into his own hand and shot at the informer.”   

Though the man survived, Mir had to face the music from across. All supply to
the group he was a part was immediately snapped, says Danish.
 Zakir Musa with Burhan, three months before the latter’s death
But Mir did not budge. He changed his military tactics and resorted to gun
snatching from government forces. In a gunfight in Buchoo, Tral, Mir killed four
soldiers and fled with two rifles, which has now become a regular practice with
militants.

“Trouble intensified in 2013 when Mir headed the Hizb’s south Kashmir unit.
He was demonised and made to suffer for want of money and ammunition,”
says Danish.

While all this was happening, Burhan and Zakir were all eyes and ears to
the events. What transpired in May 2017 when Zakir finally parted ways with
Hizb and floated Al-Qaeda’s branch in Kashmir had roots in Mir’s friction with
PaK-based leadership.

Zakir was himself recruited by Mir in 2013 when he showed an inclination

towards militancy. Though almost all the new recruits had either a family
history or were OGWs of some local rebel, Zakir had neither of them. Since
his village, Noorpora, had no active militant for a long time, Mir chose him.

Mir’s methodology was, says Abdullah, to activate different pockets where no

trace of militancy was left. Though many youth from Dadsara were ready to
join him, he chose Zakir for a purpose. But not before passing a test.

“Zakir was made to stay all day in a field while his handler told him to wait
there till he returns. When in the evening the handler came, he found Zakir
waiting patiently for him. He was instantly taken in,” says Abdullah.

Zakir, however, at one point “decided to quit” and return to his home. But,
says Abdullah, Mir was a sheet anchor and knew how to convince the youth.

“When he arrived, he told others to leave him and Zakir alone. The duo
conversed behind closed doors for some time. And when the door opened,
what people saw amazed them: Zakir was sobbing with streams of tears
flowing from his eyes,” says Muhammad, adding that Zakir never had any
thought of quitting after that.

This connection surfaced in September 2017 when Zakir issued an audio

statement on the occasion of Eid and enumerated legendary rebel
commanders like Abdullah Bangroo, Ashfaq Majeed, Yaseen Yatoo but
started the list with the name of Adil Mir. 

After breaking one cordon after another, the legend of Burhan grew in entire
Kashmir. While many would question his cordon-breaking techniques, his
close circle had full faith in him. “He was blessed with intuition. The moment
he would get a whiff of being cordoned off, he would jump out and flee with a
lightning speed,” says Muhammad.
His recruitment was spot on. When one of his OGWs requested him to take a
local as a fresh recruit, Burhan did not, citing weapon shortage as a reason.
“And ultimately, that would-be recruit joined police after the death of Burhan,”
says Muhammad. 

Burhan had a battery of OGWs who were always at his beck and call. No one
but him knew how many he had. All were assigned different works: recharging
mobile phones, arranging funds, buying weapons, acting as couriers, etc.

These OGWs used to upload his pictures and videos on Facebook through
fake accounts and make them viral. Burhan had not uploaded a single picture
of himself on social networks, claims Muhammad. “He had his fake accounts,
but he would only further his message and not his image.”

Though many accounts used by Burhan are defunct now, many are still
working. It was through these accounts Burhan used to communicate with his
OGWs and well-wishers.

Why the Valley lit up at his death

Vinay Kaura, an insurgency expert who has studied the use of social media in
Kashmir, says that the suppression of their rights to freedom of expression in
the physical space has pushed the Kashmiri youth towards the ‘virtual’ space
to vent their resentment and feeling of alienation. The battlefield is now a
multidimensional one, encompassing both physical territory and cyberspace.

This explains the best why Burhan shifted to cyberspace to further his goals.

“Though he had no military strategy, he found the mass participation of

Kashmiris as the viable option to destabilise security apparatus of the State.
And he found Facebook the best platform to do mass mobilisation. Amazingly,
he had grand success in doing so,” a south Kashmir-based police official
tells Kashmir Narrator.
 This is one of the last pictures of Burhan that made their way to the cyperspace
Those who were close to him say that Burhan did not kill a single policeman or
soldier in his militant tenure. “He always fired in self-defence during cordons.
There is not a single offensive attack done by him,” says Gulzar, another
OGW of Burhan, who too avoided rebel circles after his death.

“Only once he decided to plant an IED at a place in Tral. But it failed to

explode and they never tried it again,” says Gulzar. “Burhan had, probably,
this proverb in his mind: ‘what the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve
over’,” says Gulzar.

As soon as Burhan’s pictures started to flood the cyberspace in Kashmir,

youngsters began to link themselves with him. Dr Kaura explains this: “Social
media has shifted the paradigm in terms of the tools available to protesters in
Kashmir. They no longer need to resort to illegal measures to protest and,
instead, social media has given them the space to raise awareness, spread
information and plan protest rallies through completely legitimate means.”

The number of people in Kashmir with access to social media has increased
significantly from 25 percent in 2010 to about 70 percent by the end of 2015,
says Dr Kaura, an Assistant Professor in the Department of International
Affairs and Security Studies at the Sardar Patel University of Police, Security,
and Criminal Justice in Rajasthan.

This may also give us an inkling of where from the rage came that took the
entire Valley by a storm.

Indian Army Chief, General Bipin Rawat, may also take a clue from here to
understand “where from the rage came” after Burhan was killed. General
Rawat says he’s baffled why the killing of a local rebel put the Valley on fire.

In an interview recently to Indian Express’s Muzamil Jaleel, General Rawat

said: “Until June 2016, everything was fine. What is that incited people so
much because of that one encounter? Everything was turned upside down in
a few days time. The entire south Kashmir was out in the streets, throwing
stones at us, attacking our posts. By October-November, I was getting
messages that people say ‘azadi dur nahi hai’ (azadi is not far away).
Somebody was feeding this to people, telling them azadi was around the
corner. Our posts were being regularly attacked. Stones were being pelted at
our men. We had to bring the situation under control. We could not afford all
that. We needed to tell people azadi is not happening. We had to establish the
writ (of the State)”.

It seems the new-age tech-savvy militants achieved with selfies what the
militants of the 1990s failed to achieve with their guns: perplex the General of
world’s fourth largest army.
There are many explanations propounded as to why Kashmir erupted after
Burhan’s killing. But none offers a convincing answer. Some say the
government was caught on the wrong foot and mismanaged the initial protests
badly at Verninag, Kokernag, Acchabal, Vailoo, Arwani, Nilow and Nehama
where most of the killings took place on 9 July.

Others say the opposition National Conference’s cadre was instrumental in

instigating violence at many places, a tit-for-tat for 2010 uprising when PDP
was in the opposition.

Jama’at-i-Islami, say others, organised protests and was the force behind
sustaining the protests in south Kashmir in particular and other places in
general.

However, there is more to this than what meets the eye.

Soon after the death of Burhan along with his two associates – Sartaj Sheikh
and Parvaiz Ahmad – Al-Qaeda released a message to the “Mujahid nation of
Kashmir” asking the youth to follow the footsteps of Burhan Wani.

“If you truly believe in the message and life of Mujahid Burhan, let you follow
his footsteps,” the message said. This was for the first time in Kashmir’s long
insurgent history that Al-Qaeda praised a local rebel.

It seems that Al-Qaeda had been closely monitoring the Kashmir situation
after Burhan put it on cyberspace through his video messages. In his
penultimate video message, Burhan stated that the rebels of Kashmir are
fighting for the “establishment of Caliphate not only in Kashmir but in the entire
world.”

Also, it’s noteworthy that in 2014 Al-Qaeda released a video, calling on

Muslims in Kashmir “to follow the example of brothers in Syria and Iraq and
wage a jihad against Indian rule.”

Interestingly, an audio released on Zakir Musa-led Ansar Gazwat-ul-Hind

Telegram channel this year purportedly of PaK-based militant Abu Hamas
claimed that Burhan was always talking that “we had to implement the
Shariah, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda way.”

Was Zakir then a mere extension of Mir and Burhan’s ideology? “Yeah, but
Adil Mir and Burhan were unlike Zakir. They had strong differences with
leadership but they did not want to throw it open. But then Zakir did what he
did and there was no one to guide him,” says Abdullah.

Speaking of his patience and forbearance, Abdullah says that when police
started harassing the families of militants in Tral, Burhan called a police officer
and told him to not harm their families.
“The police officer instead abused him profusely. But a calm Burhan kept
listening and told him patiently that he has a tongue too to reply but he would
not ‘because you are my elder and we respect our elders’,” says Abdullah.

What Burhan gave to the Kashmiri youth who are attached to the rebel cause
is something his predecessors failed: a mandate to be a militant without a
weapon.

In his last video, Burhan asks youth to disrupt cordons and help militants
escape by throwing stones at forces. In 2017, it became a common trend to
storm gunfight scenes and help militants escape from the spot. Many videos
emerged wherein youth were giving a live commentary of ground zero
happenings while putting their lives in the harm’s way. At least 30 civilians
have died so far in recent past while saving militants.
 Burhan with his comrades-in-arms in this 2015 picture
Photos Courtesy: Burhan’s Family
General Rawat realised it only a year later when he asked Kashmiri youth not
to disrupt forces’ operations by throwing stones. The youth considered it their
moral victory which boosted their morale when the Army Chief said that those
trying to disrupt anti-militancy operations in Kashmir would be treated as
“overground workers of terrorists.”  

On the first death anniversary of Burhan in 2017, a Pakistan-based

newspaper published a report wherein it was alleged that Burhan had
conversed with a local mainstream politician in 2016 and sought his help to
convey an urgent message to Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. However,
people close to him and who have worked with him rubbish this allegation.

“Social media has shifted the paradigm in terms of the tools available to
protesters in Kashmir. They no longer need to resort to illegal measures to
protest and, instead, social media has given them the space to raise
awareness, spread information and plan protest rallies through completely
legitimate means.”
“Burhan would have never sought help from any pro-India politician. He had a
firm belief that no good could be expected from them. It was only after seeing
entire Kashmir turning upside down overnight after his killing, the said
legislator, out of fear, praised Burhan so as to carve a soft corner in local
populace,” says Muhammad.   

The death of Burhan and its aftermath was a watershed moment in Kashmir’s
long insurgent history. With Zakir Musa thriving on anti-Pakistan sentiments, it
shall be interesting to see whether Mir’s pupil and Burhan’s aide succeeds in
fighting India without Pakistan’s help.

—Some names have been changed to protect the identities

This cover story was published in Kashmir Narrator’s June issue. To

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