At the end of a particularly prolonged encounter in north Kashmir's Hajin town on March 22, army and police personnel recovered the remains of three persons-two Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants and a 12-year-old local schoolboy. Taken hostage before security forces closed in, little Atif Hussain Mir was being held to discourage them from launching a full-scale assault on the three-storey house in Mir Mohalla, where the captors-Ali and Hubaib-were holed up. Atif's death is now fuelling unprecedented indignation against the LeT.

It has now been revealed that Ali, a Pakistani and the older of the LeT men, was also behind six civilian killings in the area last year. The brutal murders had remained unsolved, with most locals refusing to speak up for fear of retribution. Young Atif's tragic death seems to have changed all that. Residents are not only speaking up about Ali and his ruthlessness, but also of the Pakistan-based LeT leadership's failure to rein in their man.

Atif's grieving father, Mohammad Shafi Mir, a pesticide trader, says the militants forcibly entered his house three days before the encounter and occupied the top floor of the premises, jointly owned by Mir and his brother Abdul Hameed.

This wasn't the first time Ali and his men had visited the Mir family in Hajin. Three months ago, Ali had barged in demanding that Mir allow his college-going elder daughter to marry him. The terrified family was able to smuggle the girl out of the house to a relative's home in Sopore. "I told him [since] he had come [to Kashmir] to fight a jihad, he ought to do so in the field," says Mir. This infuriated Ali, provoking further harassment. Ali and his men began visiting more frequently, abusing and beating up the men indiscriminately and at will and accusing them of being 'police informants'.

When they arrived on March 19, Ali and Hubaib held eight of Mir's family members, including five women, hostage on the top floor of the house. Mir and a nephew, on learning their family had been taken hostage, took refuge at a relative's home nearby. "He wouldn't let them out of his sight. Only my sister-in-law and her daughter were allowed downstairs to cook for them (the militants)," Mir says. The family was tortured and beaten with steel rods. According to the locals, Ali's plan to also occupy the neighbouring house, belonging to another of Mir's brothers, was thwarted after the owner locked the place and fled.

When the security forces laid a cordon around Mir's house and Mir Mohalla on March 22 morning, Ali let the women go, but held back young Atif and his uncle Abdul Hameed, hoping to delay the encounter. According to Abdul Hameed, the younger militant wanted to release them, but Ali refused. He managed to slip away while being moved to a different room. After that, the LeT men ignored repeated appeals from the family and locals to release Atif.

Not wanting to give the militants the chance to use the cover of darkness to escape, the security forces deployed heavy ammunition around dusk to bring down the house. An inconso-lable Mir wishes the security forces had waited a little longer. "They could have saved my child, but they didn't," he says, his eyes brimming with tears, while a JCB machine levelled the plot on which his house stood.

A hospital report, accessed unofficially, shows evidence of torture- marks made by knife cuts on Atif's body, including on his neck.

A grieving Mir is also angry that locals, including himself, failed to speak up against Ali's atrocities. "Everyone is talking now but what's the use? He did this to so many... beaten and harassed by this zalim, this qatil (tyrannical murderer)," he says.

The Mirs are not alone in feeling this resentment. The rage against Pakistani militants, particularly those of the LeT, is palpable in Hajin and elsewhere in north Kashmir. A slain militant's relative points to the change in the public mood by citing as an example the March 26 visit of Mohammad Akbar Lone, the nominee of the National Conference for the Baramulla Lok Sabha seat. "Not a single stone was hurled or slogan shouted. This was unimaginable before March 22," he says.

Senior state police officers also acknowledge that the opinion in Hajin is turning against the militants, but still underline the need to remain watchful. Meanwhile, there hasn't, rather tellingly, been a word about the Hajin encounter from the LeT leadership in Pakistan, not even the customary press release that follows any encounter involving LeT fighters.