Srinagar, April 18 -- "Where have you gone," she wails. "I will eat food only when my son's body is found."

A few houses away, a similar scene unfolded, yet painted in a different shade of grief. Farhan Parray's parents sat, a portrait of stunned silence. Unlike Saja's wails that echoed through the neighborhood, their sorrow manifested in a hollow stillness. Their eyes, red-rimmed and searching, flickered between the window and each other.

"They are in shock, not uttering a word. Dead body of their son is all they are waiting for," a relative who had come to offer her condolences to the family said.

In the midst of this collective sorrow, condolences poured in from across Kashmir. Bilal Ahmad, a resident of Awantipora, in a bid to show...