It has recruited local youth, educated and middle-class, who are conversant with social media and not afraid to reveal their identities. They have achieved an immense popularity among the Kashmiri population. When Waseem Mall and Naseer Ahmad Pandit, two of Burhan's associates were killed by security forces, tens of thousands of local Kashmiris came to attend the funeral and the funeral rites had to be repeated six times to allow all the mourners to participate.[3] Some of the youths who recently became militants had campaigned for PDP during the general elections in 2014.[29]