Hizbul Mujahideen’s (HM) newly recruited commander, Burhan-ud-Din Muzaffar Wani, has taken Kashmir’s militant landscape by storm by using his social media skills and guns. One of his recent photographs featured the 21-year-old commander surrounded by at least ten other militants of roughly the same age carrying guns; the image went viral on social media applications (such as Facebook and WhatsApp) and is considered to have marked a new phase of the Kashmir conflict. In an audiovisual message, Wani also encouraged disaffected Kashmiri youths to join the ongoing militancy.

In the weeks following the deadly serial bombings in Indian capital, New Delhi in October last year, the Union Home department in a revealing disclosure informed a hitherto unknown Inquilabi militant outfit which shouldered the responsibility of Delhi blasts has been active in Southern parts of the country and associated with the outlawed 'Student Islamic Movement of India' (hereafter SIMI), the radical outlawed Muslim student outfit.