Militant Leadership Monitor: "Burhan Muzafar Wani: The Viral Poster Boy of Kashmir Jihad"

Burhan Muzafar Wani: The Viral Poster Boy of Kashmir Jihad

Militant Leadership Monitor - December 2015

by Animesh Roul

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. He spoke of “jihad,” urging young men from Jammu and Kashmir not to become informers for the Indian Army or police. Wani’s lieutenants, in a rare but direct recruitment drive in the state, offered remunerations of $530 (approximately INR 35,000) to whomever was willing to join HM (Zee News, August 17).