Srinagar, July 4 -- By Syed Nissar H. Gilani

Kashmir holds two types of belief in its hands at once.

One is gentle: the smoke of wild rue at a wedding, a bird's call at the window, and a shoe flipped right-side up to keep the peace at home.

The other is predatory: a man calling himself a pir who tells a sick woman that her migraines come from a curse, then produces a knotted thread from beneath a rug to prove it.

Both traditions share a vocabulary of omens and spirits, but only one of them empties bank accounts and leaves disease untreated.

The failure to separate them, in public discourse and in law, is what keeps the con running.

Start with the business itself, because it is a business, built on a repeatable method.

The fraudulen...