The Silence Breakers of Kashmir

BASHIR AHMAD LONE had just returned from Isha prayers in the early 1990s when he was shot dead outside his home in Fatehgarh, Baramulla—just a few steps from an old temple. His younger brother, 14-year-old Mohammad Yasin, saw the killing from a nearby alley. He screamed for help. No one came. Not that night, not even for the funeral.

Terrorists, later identified to be from Hizbul Mujahi­deen, left a warning: “Dig two more graves. We’ll return.”

And they did.

A year later, in November 1993, two more Lone brothers—Ghulam Mohiuddin and Abdul Rashid— were abducted. Their mother, Saja Begum, tried to resist. They shot her in the leg. The house was ransacked, family photographs torn and scattered. Their father, Wali Mohammad Lone, had refused to let his sons join the mili­tants. That choice sealed their fate. The brothers were never seen again. Only Bashir’s grave remains.

For decades, the Lone family lived with trauma—and some­thing worse: social erasure. Neighbours kept their distance. Their daughters were whispered about. Relatives stopped visiting. They were not just bereaved; they were branded.

 

Across Kashmir, hundreds of families like the Lones faced a similar predicament—grief compounded by isolation. Branded as mukhbirs (informers) or gaddars (traitors), many were denied burial plots in village graveyards. Some were forced to bury loved ones in their own courtyards. Their homes were vandalised, their names struck from local memory.

But this July, in Baramulla, something changed.

Inside a university auditorium atop a pine-covered hill, vic­tims’ families gathered—many speaking publicly for the first time. At the front of the hall stood 25-year-old Shahid Ahmad Bhat. This is the first time a top state official has truly heard us, he told Open after directly speaking to Jammu & Kashmir’s Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha behind closed doors.

On September 4, 2006, Shahid was walking home from the fields in Khaipora Payeen, Tangmarg, with his father, uncle and brother when militants opened fire. His father, a serving hawal­dar in the Indian Army, and his uncle were killed. Shahid was beaten unconscious and left for dead.

Six months later, after a local woman was found raped and murdered, Shahid’s grandfather was falsely accused. Their fam­ily was exiled from the village. No one waited for the courts; judgment came from the mob.

Lt Governor Sinha, flanked by top police and administrative of­ficials, heard these stories—some in open sessions, others behind closed doors. In one such meeting, a woman described three decades of intimidation and loss. Sinha turned to the district SSP and ordered the case reopened—immediately.

The initiative is part of a growing effort spearheaded by Save Youth Save Future, a local NGO led by Wajahat Farooq Bhat. Of the 11,000 known terror-affected families in J&K, 1,600 have been formally iden­tified. So far, 372 families have come forward through this initiative.

“The silence lasted too long,” says Wajahat. “These families weren’t just forgotten, they were banished. They were denied dignity in death and life.”

In just two weeks, 400 to 500 fresh applications have landed in district commissioners’ offices. For the first time, these families are being recognised—not as col­laborators, but as casualties of a different kind of war.

The government’s outreach extends beyond symbolism. Around 50 job appointments have been issued to affected kin. Properties tied to militants are being sealed. Cold cases are being reopened. For many, it is the first act of formal acknowledgement from the state.

In Haptnatar, near Pahalgam, 38 families share a common scar. “We were treated like ghosts because our father worked as a wood supplier for the Army,” one young man says.

This isn’t just administrative redress. It is moral repair. For years, these families bore a double punishment: mourning their dead while being punished for the manner of their deaths. Their stories did not fit the dominant political narrative.

But on this hillside in Baramulla, silence is giving way to testi­mony. These are not counter-insurgents or informers. They are fa­thers, sons, mothers—citizens abandoned in a conflict they never signed up for. In a place where silence has long been a sentence, this may finally be the first word in a long-delayed reckoning.

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