Animal deaths in the Kashmir conflict have gone mostly undocumented and are treated as collateral damage unworthy of attention.
Although Islamabad has always supported Kashmir's UN-sanctioned Right to Self Determination, it has also been wary of Kashmiri nationalism that envisions a state free from both India and Pakistan.
Kashmir's most restless region has been kept relatively calm since India revoked the region's autonomous status. Residents say that the anger will bubble over at any moment.
Critics say presidential order, that came amid uproar in Parliament as well as a huge troop surge and phone and internet suspension in the restive valley, aims to change the disputed region's Muslim-majority demographics.
India asks tourists and Hindu pilgrims visiting a Himalayan cave shrine "to curtail their stay" in the disputed territory, citing security concerns, but locals question New Delhi's intentions.
He wasn't in the good books of Kashmiri resistance groups nor their Pakistani supporters, so the former carrom board champion was probably used by the Indian state to serve a purpose and then discarded.
Zakir Musa's killing is billed as a major blow to the armed rebellion in India-administered Kashmir, where thousands have come out on the streets in fresh anti-New Delhi protests.
In one case a father visits three graveyards to offer prayers for his son. In another, a broken tooth became the only way to identify a slain rebel.
Kashmir is one of the most militarised regions in the world. As it holds elections in three phases to avoid potential clashes, some soldier-guarded polling stations are recording as few as 25 people turning up to vote.
The Indian state has imposed a partial ban on a vital highway connecting the north and the south of the disputed territory ahead of Indian elections, making life even more difficult in an already contentious region.
While warmongers beat their drums, it is ordinary Kashmiris clustered around the Line of Control, wedged between two nuclear-armed regional rivals, that face the gravest of dangers.
Last week 20-year-old Adil Ahmed Dar rammed an SUV full of explosives into a convoy of Indian paramilitary forces in India-held Kashmir. His family paints a picture of a family man who was changed by Kashmir’s unending conflict.
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