The current affairs session went on for a long time as many of the trainees asked the maulana questions. Later, the boys continued discussing the issues raised in the class during the dinner that followed.

Half an hour after dinner, the trainees offered the last prayer, the Isha, which is offered before midnight.

The trainers then took the trainees out for a quick march into the jungle, which was a trek of five kilometres, before allowing them to call it a day.

‘It was a mind-bogglingly long day, brother. Let’s hope tomorrow is better,’ Sahil told Atharv before falling into an exhausted sleep.

But the next twenty days of the Daura-e-Aam training course went exactly like the first one. Sahil, Atharv, Nirav, Anant and Rohit did well and received special appreciation for standing out among the others in shooting, debating, unarmed combat, and assembling and disassembling weapons.

Three days after the trainees passed the Daura-e-Aam course, they were sent to another training facility in Muzaffarabad, known as the Aqsa Maaskar. The Aqsa trainers put the recruits through the advanced course, the Daura-e-Khaas, also known as the commando course, which was a four-month course. For the first two months, the daily training schedule was similar to that of the Daura-e-Aam course. The last two months, however, were dedicated to teaching the recruits a few additional special skills. These pertained to guerrilla warfare techniques against the Indian Army’s assets in Jammu and Kashmir, surviving in the treacherous terrain of J&K during harsh weather conditions and using a wider range of weapons and explosives.

The instructors were a new set of six trainers. They taught the recruits how to lay an ambush for the army and security forces’ convoys on highways, and how to cross the Line of Control undetected. Classes on river-crossing, reconnaissance, taking cover during exchange of fire and rock-climbing were also conducted.

Mock drills were held so the recruits could hone their skills. These often involved the firing of live bullets on those attempting to cross obstacles. Night time was preferred for such drills. As part of their survival training, Sahil and Anant were sent into the nearby jungle for three days. They had to remain unseen and attack a mock Indian Army convoy on the third day. An ‘Indian Army’ team, also comprising two fellow trainees, was hot on their trail with rubber bullets to ‘kill’ them.

Sahil and Anant managed to pull off the ambush and also ‘killed’ one of the members of the Indian Army team.