Abdul Majeed Dar was a former chief commander of the militant group Hizbul Mujahideen in Jammu & Kashmir till 2001.

[5] In the following years, rivalries developed within the Hizb, culminating in a killing of 21 people in an Azad Kashmir village in near the border in 1998.

[1] Praveen Swami, citing friends of Dar, has written that soon afterwards, he went for Hajj, and had a revelation standing in front of the Kaaba, and where saw "a vision of the suffering that a decade of terror had inflicted on Jammu and Kashmir.

"[6] Eventually, after the much-maligned Chittisinghpura massacre of March 2000, several voices within the Hizb joined Dar in seeking a return to more peaceful approaches.

[9] Though the move was immediately endorsed by the Hizb leadership,[10] it led to deep divisions between the followers of Dar and Salahuddin.