On Tuesday evening, 17-year-old Kaiser Ahmad Dar scored 88 per cent marks in Class 12 exams but the moment of joy in the household turned into sadness as the boy, who was the apple of the eyes of his parents, has gone missing for the last five days, apparently to sign up for militancy.The Dar family’s grief worsened when some friends and relatives shared the youngster’s marks. The family wanted Kaiser to become a doctor, a dream he too had shared a few weeks back as he attended tuitions at a nearby coaching center. Kaiser has parents, grandparents, and two young siblings in the family.So what changed within a few days?“We had no inkling that he will go missing. On February 4, he told his mother that he is going out to buy medicine but within half an hour his mobile phone went off. Since then, we have lost contact. There is no trace of him,” Mohammad Ashraf Dar, his father told News18 from his home in Pulwama.“Our happiness has turned into mourning. Every eye is moist in the family,” he added.“We don’t know where to look for him. Our world has come crashing down,” Dar, who works with Jammu and Kashmir Police said, struggling to make sense of his words.The Dar family is not very certain where their son could have gone though the fear is he might have joined militants as is a norm in Kashmir.Many youngsters in Kashmir slip out quietly from their homes, switch off their cellphones and within hours pose with a weapon to announce their signing up for militant outfits.But while the boys would openly flaunt joining militant groups on social media till two years ago, the trend today is to lie low and maintaining secrecy – a change that is posing challenge to police to enlist new “ghost” recruits.In the last two years alone, 148 and 128 youngsters respectively have got recruited into militants fold though police said it has killed many in string of gun battles.Ashraf Dar who is posted in Jammu for last three years arrived at Tujan village immediately after he was told his son had disappeared all of sudden. The first thing he did was to lodge a missing report of his son in a nearby police station and secondly like many desperate parents do, he asked his family members to appeal to their son to come back.On Tuesday, barely minutes after the Jammu and Kashmir School Board announced the results of Class 12 exams and the family logged onto the site to find out he had passed with flying colors, they renewed their plea to their lost child.“Kaiser! Please return home. I request the people who he had gone with to turn him back. He is our sole support and we have nothing but him,” Dar’s grandmother shouted in the video that was posted on social media. She, a few other women, an old man and Dar’s two siblings – his 15-year-old sister and four-year-old brother – were seen snuggled in a blanket and making an emotional appeal for uniting him with the family.“I have no idea why could he left the house. He had everything. I had brought him a car to move around and go to tuitions but he would barely use it,” said Dar.“He is very reserved and obedient. He would not go out of home or meet friends but study indoors. We have a playground near our house where boys would play but he would seldom spend time with them despite my repeated persistence. He was always engrossed in his studies. I don’t know why he left us,” he added.Over the last five days, Dar has been meeting officials requesting them to provide a clue about his whereabouts but so nothing has come through. A police officer admitted that a missing report has been registered and assured “if we find him we will take a lenient view in the case”.“I want him to become a doctor but he should first come back,” Kaiser’s father said with a chocked voice. Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here.