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Anantnag (Jammu and Kashmir): Abdul Rashid Ganaie’s son, Haroon, disappeared in 2018. His family went to the police and searched for him, but never found him. The house Haroon had lived in with his wife and daughter in Hassanpora, Anantnag, was blown apart late on April 24, 2025, two days after the terrorist attack in Pahalgam in which 26 people were killed.

Fifteen months later on July 21, 2026, head constable Ashiq Hussain Qureshi of Jammu and Kashmir Police was shot dead while on duty in Anantnag. It was the first militant attack in Kashmir since the Pahalgam terrorist strike. Just about 24 hours later, on the intervening night of July 22–23, another house belonging to the Ganaie family was blown apart.

Eight years have passed since Haroon’s disappearance, and the authorities continue to identify him as a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist. A police official in Kashmir says, speaking anonymously, that Haroon and another man, Adil Thokar from Guree village, also in Anantnag district, are believed to have crossed over into Pakistan.

However, the police have not publicly identified the terrorists responsible for the attack on Qureshi or said whether Haroon or Thokar were linked to it. The Wire contacted Nalin Prabhat, Director General of Police, Jammu and Kashmir, regarding the official designation of the two men and their connection with the Anantnag shooting. He declined comment, saying he does not speak to the media.

Ganaie says the family never knew Haroon to be involved in violence and that there was no FIR against him before he disappeared. They do not know whether he is alive or dead.

Around 11 kilometers away from Hassanpora, in Guree, the family of Adil Thokar has also had its homes blown up twice in a 15-month period. Adil disappeared in 2018. His family reported him missing. They never found him.

The forces blew up the Thokar family’s first house on April 24, 2025, following the Pahalgam attack. It was done on the same day as the Ganaie house was razed. The Thokar family constructed a new house and moved into it earlier this year.

Then in July 2026, the forces returned and blasted the new house. The Thokars’ two houses now stand broken, side by side, on the same plot. When the demolitions occured, media reports citing unnamed officials said that the authorities had identified both men as an LeT terrorists. But Adil’s family says that no FIR exists against him and the police have not made public any connection between him and Qureshi’s killing.

As The Wire previously reported, Jammu and Kashmir Police claim to have identified 14 local militants active in Kashmir. Officials told this publication earlier that the homes of eight of those 14 have since been demolished.

Abdul Rashid Ganaie at the tin shed he is constructing as a new shelter in Hassanpora, Anantnag. Photo: Pragya Singh

The double-demolition anti-terrorism tactic

The government has long defended the hardline approach of the forces, with Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha declaring in November 2024 that demolishing homes suspected to “shelter” terrorists was “not an atrocity” but “a demand of justice”. He says that anyone who provided such shelter would have his house “razed to the........

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