Srinagar, May 10: If Kashmir's youth needed a beam of hope to breach a wall of despair, Athar Aamir-ul-Shafi Khan may have provided it today.

Not only has the 23-year-old IIT graduate ranked second in the civil service exam, whose results were declared today, he has done so from a region used to seeing its educated youth swell the militants' ranks.

"I'm extremely delighted and my parents are rejoicing too," Athar told The Telegraph over the phone.

Delhi girl Tina Dabi topped the exam. The third spot went to Delhi-based Jasmeet Singh Sandhu.

Athar's story might pep the Valley at a time the latest news from its academia has been a Kashmiri-outsider divide at NIT Srinagar following celebrations of an Indian cricket defeat and a protest that prompted police caning of outstation students.

Few from Kashmir have done so well in the civil service exam as Athar, although Shah Faesal from north Kashmir's Kupwara had laid down a marker by earning the topmost rank in 2009.

Till that year, few Kashmiris had made it to the Union Public Service Commission's merit list but once Faesal bucked the trend, several from the Valley have been clearing the exam every year.

Athar said Faesal, now the state's director of education, was his biggest inspiration.

"I hope that Kashmiris will excel in every field, be it civil services, medicine, engineering or whatever," the boy from Mattan village said.

"His (Faesal's) story gave me confidence and it basically opened the door for others to crack the exams."

But it's not these young men and women who have been grabbing the spotlight.

South Kashmir has been a virtual conveyor belt of educated young men taking up arms against the State in recent years, and many of them have died in gunfights with the security forces.

A militant from the region, Burhan, has emerged as a youth icon luring young postgraduates and engineers to his fold.

Ishaq Parrey, 19, had been just out of school and wanted to be a doctor. He had scored 98.4 per cent in his Class X exams, earning the nickname "Newton" for his academic record.

But he joined the militancy and died in an encounter last March.

Another trend in south Kashmir has been of mobs willing to risk their lives to free arrested militants. Funerals of slain militants in the region attract thousands of mourners.

Despair, though, has little purchase on Athar, nor is he easily swayed from his goal by disappointment.

He had cleared the exam last year as well but ranked 581st, which prompted him to take it again this year. Having joined the railway services last year, he was speaking today from Lucknow, where he is undergoing a training course. He now plans a career in the Indian Administrative Service.

Athar's father Mohammad Shafi Khan, an economics teacher at a girls' higher secondary school in Anantnag, said he was proud of his son.

"I'm thankful to God and I pray that my son becomes an inspiration for the young generation of Kashmir," he said.