The Lover Boy of Bahawalpur Quotes

“Dar kept faltering in his speech, so Hanjila Jihadi was made to dub the video. When they were satisfied, the video was sent to Pakistan to Ammar Alvi, another brother of Masood Azhar and an uncle of Umar Farooq. It was his name ‘AMMAR’ that Balwal had seen painted on one of the magazines found by Umar’s dead body.”
― Rahul Pandita, The Lover Boy of Bahawalpur : How the Pulwama Case was Cracked

“As the separatist elements got emboldened by the leadership in the state, police officers became frustrated. ‘I would arrest a stone pelter, only to watch him be set free after ten days. Sometimes we got so frustrated that we would ask the judge to at least book him on charges of eve-teasing so that he stayed in jail for slightly longer,’ said an officer.”
― Rahul Pandita, The Lover Boy of Bahawalpur : How the Pulwama Case was Cracked

“For the mehmaani mujahids (guest holy warriors), as the foreign terrorists began to be called in Kashmir, the Tral area in Pulwama became a sanctuary of choice. This was mostly due to its topography.”
― Rahul Pandita, The Lover Boy of Bahawalpur : How the Pulwama Case was Cracked

“Journalists recall how in those days this bunch of men made fools out of eager journalists working with Western media outlets who came in droves to document the ‘rebellion’ against the Indian state. One day, a journalist would ask his local contact, usually a stringer, to arrange an interview with a JKLF commander. So, the JKLF would ask a sympathizer from Kashmir University who could speak in broken English to cover his face with a Palestinian scarf and pose as a JKLF commander and give an interview, since its own men knew no English. The next day, the same student would change his scarf and pose for another journalist as a commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen.”
― Rahul Pandita, The Lover Boy of Bahawalpur : How the Pulwama Case was Cracked

“But back in 1989, even as the intelligence agencies were sending inputs about the ultra-porous LoC to New Delhi, no attention was paid to them. The then chief minister of J&K, Farooq Abdullah, upon being asked about bomb blasts and the killings of minority Hindus, said that there was no militancy. The government maintained that the disturbances were just the handiwork of Khalistani extremists from Punjab.”
― Rahul Pandita, The Lover Boy of Bahawalpur : How the Pulwama Case was Cracked

“A few days after the Pulwama suicide attack, Mudasir, they found out, had put up a WhatsApp status: ‘Who wants to be the next martyr?”
― Rahul Pandita, The Lover Boy of Bahawalpur : How the Pulwama Case was Cracked