[Reader-list] "Aazadi" to terrorise India

[Aditya Raj Kaul]

  Azadi to terrorise India

by Wilson John  - The Pioneer
Link -
http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnist1.asp?main_variable=Columnist&file_name=john%2Fjohn147.txt&writer=john

 *The pro-azadi slogans we hear and the Pakistani flags we see in the
Kashmir Valley are self-contradictory. Or are they? What Farooq, Malik and
Shah dream of is no different from what Geelani hopes for: Kashmir becoming
Pakistani territory*

A lot has been written about the protests and the cry for *azadi* in
theKashmir Valley in the national and international media. The arguments and
counter-arguments have been loud, often raucous, and almost rabidly
emotional, clouding in the process certain important facts which the people
of Jammu & Kashmir, and India, should know.

 Of great urgency is to understand the conspiracy behind the violence and
pro-Pakistani voices in the Kashmir Valley. The loud calls for *azadi* and
more shrill pro-Pakistan slogans are contradictory in their very nature, and
therefore betray the conflicting stands taken by the various self-appointed
leaders of Kashmiris and the helping hand of Pakistani terrorist groups like
Lashkar-e-Tayyeba which have been the ISI's key instruments in propagating
anti-India sentiments and violence.

 Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the key proponent of *azadi*, is a Pakistani stooge
and has been playing the Islamabad tune for quite some time despite his
secessionist rhetoric, which should have put any ordinary Indian behind bars
without bail under the National Security Act. He wants Kashmir to become
another 'federally administered' colony of Pakistan like FATA or
Pak-Occupied Kashmir where people do not even have the fundamental right of
expression -- if someone dares to do so, as Mr Geelani and his acolytes
indulge in with abundance on this side, they would be summarily shot or
stand trial for treason.

 So should be the case of All-Party Hurriyat Conference leaders Mirwaiz Umar
Farooq, former Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front leader Yasin Malik and
Shabbir Shah who have been misleading the people over the issue of Sri
Amarnath Shrine Board land allotment and inciting them to protest and
indulge in violence against India. Umar Farooq, Yasin Malik and Shabbir Shah
have been quick to scamper on to the Geelani bandwagon but espouse a
different agenda of independence. As in the past, they are leading the
gullible people of Kashmir on a path of violence, instigated by forces which
are inimical to India.

 One such potent force is the LeT, created by Osama bin Laden during the
Afghan *jihad* and supported by the Pakistani Army and the ISI since then.
All the Kashmiri leaders have been in constant touch with the LeT leadership
during the past two months. Geelani, in fact, has been a frequent visitor to
Islamabad and other cities in Pakistan, taking part in bogus conferences on
Kashmir. He has been particularly active in the ISI-LeT network before and
during the renewed violence in Kashmir.

 The LeT has been working, assiduously for several years now in Kashmir,
marginalising the local militant outfits like Hizb-ul Mujahideen, taking
over the responsibility of training and funding of terrorist activities,
particularly after 2003, and making deeper inroads into the civil society by
establishing mosques and *madarsas* in the area and front organisations like
Kashmir Elder Council. It is well-known that the LeT has been instigating
and leading protests over power breakdowns and security operations. Kashmir
is the core agenda of the LeT and it has, in its manifesto called *Why Are
We Doing Jihad*, justified violent means to achieve its objective of
'liberating' 'Muslim' land from '*kafir*' India.

 The group has been consistently holding rallies and conferences on
*jihad*in Kashmir, increasing the rhetoric and actions since
early-2007. In
February 2007, for instance, the LeT (see *www.jamatdawah.org*) organised a
huge rally in Lahore where LeT chief Hafiz Saeed said: "India does not have
any moral right to keep on occupying Kashmir. Pakistan firmly stands with
their Kashmiri brethren in their legitimate struggle for the right of
self-determination." He said Kashmir could be India's '*atoot ang*'
(inseparable part) but it is Pakistan's jugular vein.

 A message was read out at this rally from Syed Ali Shah Geelani, in which
he said: "We will continue our struggle and achieve our freedom even if the
whole world decides to oppose us."

 In February 2008, the group organised 'Kashmir Solidarity' rallies in 32
towns of PoK. Shabbir Shah and Geelani addressed some of the rallies via
phone. The 11-point resolution adopted at the biggest of the rallies,
addressed by Geelani, declared that "Pakistan will remain insecure as long
as its jugular vein is in the clutches of its arch enemy".

 The evidence of the terrorist group's close coordination with elements on
the Indian side of Kashmir was betrayed by the LeT's elaborate plans to
welcome the '*Muzaffarabad Chalo*' march. While a large section of the media
projected the march, led by pro-Pakistani Kashmiri leaders, as a
'spontaneous protest', the LeT was clearly preparing for such an event. The
group's members, workers and supporters had gathered near the Line of
Control in thousands and were chanting, "*Sabeeluna, sabeeluna; al-jihad,
al-jihad*" (Our path, our path; *al-jihad, al-jihad*) and "*Kashmirioun say
rishta kya? La ilahe il allah*" (Our connection with Kashmiris: There is no
god but allah). While Geelani said "India cannot crush the freedom movement
of Kashmiris", Umar Farooq said the "relationship of bullet and hatred with
India will continue".

 It is also quite obvious that the renewed violence in Jammu & Kashmir and
the repeated attempts to push in terrorists, trained in camps of Swat and
Dir in North-West Frontier Province, are part of a script written by the
LeT, often called an Al Qaeda clone, supported and sustained by Pakistan
Army ever since its creation in 1993.