In March 2019, two militants were killed during a siege at a house in Nowgam, on the outskirts of Srinagar. One of them was known simply as ‘Idrees Bhai’. The encounter was forgotten for the most part, until investigators came upon a mangled smartphone that had been destroyed by Idrees Bhai. When it began to reveal its secrets, investigators realized they had hit upon a motherlode. For, Idrees Bhai was none other than Umar Farooq Alvi, mastermind of the Pulwama suicide attack of February 2019 which had killed 40 CRPF personnel, the deadliest terror attack on Indian security forces since 1989.

Now, for the first time, IPS officer Danesh Rana meticulously pieces together the conspiracy behind the attack. Based upon personal interviews with the protagonists, police chargesheets and other evidence, Rana reveals the modern face of militancy in Kashmir.

Through the story of a single terror attack, As Far as the Saffron Fields tells the story of a state in conflict. Piecing together the stories of the conspirators – from Umar the dreaded terrorist to Insha, the love of his life, from Adil Dar, the man who rammed a van full of explosives into the CRPF bus, to Head Constable Jaimal Singh, the driver of that ill-fated bus – it goes where no book on the Kashmir conflict has gone before. This is war at its worst, tearing apart families and dreams, leaving only mangled bodies and phones behind.