In the initial years, each trained member would get Rs 500 a month, which was raised to Rs 1,500. With the Kashmiri youth in PoK getting restive, the allowance was raised to Rs 1,900 a month.

The escape stories are similar too. The first step is to arrange for some money, which, incidentally in some cases, was provided by a relative through the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus. Then, they would get a Pakistani passport and a Nepal visa through an illegal agent. Once in Kathmandu, they destroy the passport and walk in through the open border.

Consider some of these accounts:

• Javed Ahmed Mir (Hizbul Mujahideen): Unlike others, he escaped into India directly—by the Delhi-Lahore bus in mid-August. He had a Pakistani passport and an Indian visa that he got after coughing up Rs 40,000 (Pak currency). A resident of Kupwara district, Mir had left Kashmir in September 2005. He was lodged in Jungle Mangal camp before going to the Ilaqa-e-gair for arms training. He claims to have been in touch with his family over phone and they asked him to return.

• Fayaz Ahmed (Al Umar Mujahideen): He worked with a Turkish NGO during the Kashmir earthquake relief effort and earned $100 a month, which helped him get a Pakistani passport and Nepal visa to return to India in August. He was 17 when he crossed over to PoK in 2001 along with 22 other boys. The group was sent to the ISI camp at Manshera. After his training, they were shifted to a camp in Haripore in 2002. According to him, some of the older boys told their trainers that they wanted to marry and did not want to be militants anymore. He recalls that they were beaten up and a person claiming to be Mast Gul of Charar-e-Sharif fame was sent to pacify them. But the boys chased him away and set the vehicles on fire.

... contd.