One of the militants killed had become a father recently back in Pakistan, the CO learnt, and so he asked the captured militant, 22-year-old Sajjad Ahmed from Muzaffargarh in south-west Pakistan and a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative, what would now happen to the fatherless child.
“He said ‘in jihad, no one has to take care of anybody’,” the CO told me. “When I asked him why he joined the jihad, he said that they were told that all Muslims in India live under terrible oppression and the situation is so bad that they are not allowed to do namaz.”
Ahmed is the third of four sons and a daughter born to landless farm labourers. When he was 10 years old, he dropped out of school to work as a farm hand. As teenagers, he and his brothers worked as labourers on construction sites, and then as a truck-driver’s help—a job notorious for being brutal and abusive. Ahmed moved to a more lucrative trade, working with a drug gang that ran heroin. In 2008, when he was 16, Ahmed was arrested for murder—he allegedly shot a man who was said to be harassing a friend’s sister. He was bailed out by the girl’s family. He fell in love with the girl, but was rejected by the family—she got married to a local vet instead. Ahmed developed a heroin habit himself, and began a life of homelessness. In 2011, he was acquitted in the murder case. A year later, Ahmed told army investigators that he met a preacher from the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a politico-religious organization under whose umbrella the LeT operates. Here was food, shelter and a way out of addiction. He volunteered for armed training and quickly moved from Daura-e-Aam, or basic combat training, to Daura-e-Suffa, or intermediate training, and finally, Daura-e-Khaas, advanced training. He tried once in 2013 to infiltrate through the line of control (LoC), but was rebuffed, he told the army. He lived on an LeT stipend. His parents and brothers did not want him to join the LeT, but were glad for the money and the prestige it brought them, Ahmed told the army. They are desperately poor, he said.