When public support of the militancy began to diminish, many militants turned to the political arena; however, the voices of women have not been accorded their rightful place in the dialogues of the Kashmiri conflict and politics. Although women have been the hardest-hit victims of the conflict and have played pivotal roles in separatism and the armed insurgency, their activities are barely mentioned in mainstream narratives of Kashmiri militancy. The media seems uneasy with the idea of female Kashmiri involvement in militancy; when a woman is charged as an overground operative of a militant group, the media swiftly declares her innocent or justifies her.
