Son of a government school teacher, 31-year-old Saifullah Mir had joined the militant movement in 2014. Mir, who was the Hizbul Mujahideen chief, has been reported killed by the forces in an encounter on November 1, 2020, in Srinagar.
A child of conflict, Mir was born in 1989 when the militancy was raging in full swing in the valley. But there is more to his identity than just being a militant.
A native of Malangpora in Pulwama district of South Kashmir, Mir studied till class X and later earned a diploma in medical electronics from the Industrial Training Institute in Pulwama in 2010. Later, he went on to pursue another diploma from the National Institute of Electronics in Information Technology in Srinagar in 2013.
He was proficient in learning to mend the diagnostic equipment and was hired as a trainer by the institute after the course completion, a Local told The Kashmiriyat.
He was well-known in areas around his village for his expertise in repairing medical machinery. He was often regarded as a “doctor” by the people of his village. He wanted to be a doctor but he ended up being in the medical field.
He even worked for two months at the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences. Just four months before he joined the militant movement in 2014, he was conferred with a certificate of excellence by Jammu Kashmir’s then Science and Technology minister, Feroz Ahmad Khan.
While Mir was seen as a young professional carving out a career in the medical field, militancy was making its way in South Kashmir.
Unlike Burhan Wani, who had a history of being harassed by the Indian security forces while he was in class X and his brother was also beaten up by the forces, Mir’s family does not know about any such incident. His family claims that he had no violent encounter with the security forces.
After joining militancy in 2014, Mir supposedly grew close to Riyaz Naikoo, who succeeded Wani in 2017, Sources told The Kashmiriyat. Mir was appointed as the new chief of Hizbul Mujahideen after his predecessor Riyaz Naikoo was shot dead by the Indian Army in an encounter in Beighpora village earlier this year.
Unlike his predecessor Burhan Wani, the former chief of Hizbul Mujahideen, who was killed in 2016, Mir was not social media savvy. Mir was the fourth operational chief of the militant outfit from Pulwama since 22-year-old Wani was killed in July 2016.
Sources in the Jammu Kashmir police had earlier said that Mir used to use his expertise in helping militants but his family denied any such connection. His family is still finding answers to the reasons why he joined the militancy.
His mother, Sarwa Begum, a mother to five children, had learned from her neighbour in 2014 that Mir had joined the militant movement.
She used to question the fate of her child and was unaware of what had motivated Mir to pick up the guns.