Most Shias that The Quint spoke to found the suggestion of a sectarian split within Kashmiris “highly insulting”.

“We keep hearing non-Kashmiris tell us that it is only Sunnis who have a problem with New Delhi’s policies. This is insulting. Do Shias not suffer when the entire Kashmir is made into a prison? Do Shias not get blinded by pellets? Are Shias not being detained? These are nothing but an effort to divide us,” says Javed Hussain.

The resentment among Shias has been, in part, bred from the fact that key community leaders, both pro-India and separatist, have been detained by security forces, including Jammu and Kashmir Shia Association President Imran Raza Ansari, who is with Sajad Lone’s People’s Conference, as well as separatists like Moulvi Abbas Ansari, who heads the Ittehadul Muslimeen, and Agha Syed Hassan Alsafavi of Jammu and Kashmir Anjuman-e-Sharie Shian.

While the Ansaris hold sway among the Shias of Srinagar, the Alsafavi family has dominated the political and the social affairs of the Shias of Budgam.

Among Shias, clerics play a more central role than among Sunnis, and their detention has left the community rudderless on political as well as on social matters, like marriages.