Last Friday morning, Manzoor Ahmad Magray huddled in a corner of the mosque in the south Kashmir village of Nowpora Payeen, clutching a pistol and a grenade, thinking about whether his life might be redeemed by death. The police, waiting outside, sent in his father, an ageing agricultural labourer, to urge his son to come out; officers, as well as village notables, assured the teenager he would be treated well. This wasn't the way his friends in the Lashkar-e-Taiba had taught him: the road to redemption and manhood went to death.

Praveen Swami ‏writes that for a new army in Kashmir, the Lashkar turns to the rural poor. Read more