A small prayer meeting in the memory of Burhan Wani was organised at Hizbul's Muzaffarabad base.

Hafiz Saeed accompanied by some of the key members of JuD's cyber cell held extensive meetings with Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Sayeed Salahuddin and his close associates in Muzaffarabad, on Saturday.

RISING TO THE OCCASION

A small prayer meeting in the memory of Burhan Wani was organised at Hizbul's Muzaffarabad base. Both Saeed,the mastermind behind 26/11 Mumbai attacks, and Salahudding addressed a gathering of Hizbul militants from a makeshift stage which also had posters of killed Hizbul militant Burhan Wani.

If sources are to be believed, it was Hafiz's idea to use social media extensively in order to fuel the anti-media sentiments in the Kashmir valley. Saeed's Jamaat-ud-Dawa already has several well trained social media cells across Pakistan.

Hafiz has been working extensively on these cells over last few years in order to defy a ban imposed on JuD's media coverage in Pakistan. This media gag was imposed sometime back by Pakistani authorities but Saeed managed to escape it through events organised under the banner of several parallel platforms such as Difa-e-Pakistan Council and Falah E Insaniat foundation Pakistan.

HIZBUL-JUD JOINT HANDIWORK

So far this unholy alliance of JuD and Hizbul has been working well to advantage of separatist groups and Pakistan.

Compared to Hizbul, Jamaat-ud-Dawa has a weaker presence in the valley and hence it was virtually impossible for Hafiz to control and coordinate the series of protests in Kashmir valley.

However, soon after the news of Burhan's encounter floated, Saeed reached Muzaffarabad along with his team and facilitated anti-India sentiments among Kashmiri youth.

Apart from generating hashtags, the campaign to user's change display pictures and names on social media to Burham's was the handiwork of these cells.

This recent unrest in Kashmir has seen a unique social media strategy where provocative anti-India contents kept flooding the social media at a regular interval.

Pakistan's ministry of foreign affairs was also quick to take advantage of the situation in Kashmir and called the encounter of wanted Hizbul militant Burhan Wani an "extrajudicial killing of a Kashmiri leader".

As the valley burns and Islamabad keeps playing to the international gallery, it intentionally chooses to overlook the fact that one of its own, well protected non-state actors were responsible for one of the bloodiest Kashmiri unrest in 2016.

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