However, forced into a desk job as editor of a jihadist newspaper, Azhar finally found his niche: his racy, if fanciful, stories of life on the front line became a huge hit in Pakistan. It also made him a valuable propagandist when Pakistan’s secret service began to foment its irredentist insurgency in Indian-ruled Kashmir – until, that is, his handlers despatched him into the field again, whereupon Indian soldiers nabbed him almost straight away.
Bumbling or not, Azhar was deemed worth getting back at any price – and in this case, it was paid by six Western backpackers, kidnapped by Azhar’s comrades in 1995 as bargaining chips for his release. The Meadow, a meticulous, if sometimes overdetailed, account of the saga, is the name of the lush, pine-scented camping spot in the Kashmiri Himalayas from where they were snatched. Like a real-life version of Alex Garland’s The Beach, The Meadow had almost folkloric status among backpackers, for whom the stunning surroundings and frisson of danger offered the perfect traveller’s tale.
In this case, though, only one of them, American Don Childs, survived to tell it, after escaping early on and being spotted by an Indian helicopter patrol. Four others – Britons Keith Mangan and Paul Wells, German Dirk Hasert and American Don Hutchings – have never been found, while Norwegian Hans Christian Ostro, 27, was “slaughtered like a goat for Eid”.
