Militancy, and the separatist sentiment had remarkably waned in the whole of Kashmir in 2011 through 2015. After the PDP-BJP government took over in March 2015, the Valley witnessed a recurrence of both militancy and separatist sentiments. For over a year, Hizbul Mujahideen militant, Burhan Wani, was ‘permitted’ to grow into an icon for defiant Kashmiri youths. A fresh eruption of violence needed just a trigger, which came with Wani’s killing in an encounter in South Kashmir, on 8 July 2016.

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