The man introduced himself as Zahid but did not ask Atharv to identify himself. Zahid took Atharv to his home, where he lived with his wife, parents and two daughters, aged three and five. Atharv was given a tasty but simple dinner of rotis and mutton stew. His host then took him to a room in the basement, where he was to spend the night. The room had a flask of warm water and at least three blankets to keep him warm during what was a chilly night, even by Kashmir’s standards.

The next morning, Zahid took Atharv to an undisclosed destination. After travelling for around two hours, the car turned off the highway on to a road leading to the foothills of a local range. The van stopped in front of a tea shop. While Atharv was drinking his tea, Zahid crossed the road to speak to an old man sitting on a cot and smoking a hookah outside a small, shabby cottage with half a dozen bleating goats on its porch. After a brief conversation, he returned to the tea shop and told Atharv to accompany him to the old man’s cottage.

‘You have to stay here tonight. Atif will send somebody tomorrow,’ he said. He then shook hands with Atharv, nodded to the old man and walked briskly back to his van and drove away.

The old man gestured to Atharv to sit with him on the cot. He pointed to a tiny outhouse built next to the cottage, saying, ‘Make yourself comfortable there. You will get dinner in an hour. Atif will send somebody tomorrow at 8 a.m.’

After dinner, Atharv retired to bed. Half an hour later, he awoke to the howling of the wind. It was cold in the small room. He muttered his appreciation for the old man, his host for the night, for having generously kept a flask of hot soup by his bed. Shutting the outhouse’s lone window, he gratefully drank the soup.

The next morning, at 8 a.m. sharp, two young men arrived at the cottage. They introduced themselves as Abu Hanzala, nineteen, and Abu Faisal, twenty-two. The three of them set off for the hill behind the old man’s cottage. They walked for around seven hours, making their way through dense thickets and scaling hill after hill.

Around 7 p.m. they reached a small hut. Opposite the hut was a cave. Atharv’s companions led him inside, where they found a lone occupant. He obviously knew Hanzala and Faisal and greeted them warmly. The four men spent the night in the cave, sleeping on straw beds after a frugal dinner of apples and bananas.

The next morning, Hanzala and Faisal fished out their AK-47s, the guns’ black barrels gleaming in the sliver of sunlight that had made its way through the cave’s entrance. The three men soon set off again, bound for a destination that Atharv had not been told about.