Jammu And Kasmir

03-11-2006, 10:45 AM

Gilgit-Baltistan part of Jammu and Kashmir: India 
Why they have to tell them? First go and occupy. Standing outside wall and calling other party with names and telling your own bravery or claims will never solve problem.

**acharya** · 03-13-2006, 05:36 AM

Mayhem in the menagerie

New conflict between the United Jihad Council and President Pervez Musharraf reflects a crisis in Pakistan's political life.

â Photo: PTI

DISILLUSIONED: A group of militants laid down arms in Srinagar last Wednesday. Jihadis are angry with what they see as dwindling support from the Pakistani establishment. â Photo: PTI

FEARFUL OF being fed to the tigers in the forest next door, the inhabitants of Pakistani's jihadi menagerie have started to turn on the zoo-keeper. For the past week, top jihadi leaders have staged an unprecedented hunger strike to protest what they see as Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's decision to abandon the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir. At least 18 top commanders, including the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Mohammad Yusuf Shah, the Lashkar-e-Taiba's Mohammad Zaki-ur-Rahman, al-Umar's Mushtaq Zargar, and the Jaish-e-Mohammad's Abdul Rehman, say they will continue their protests until General Musharraf changes course.

Do the protests herald an end to Pakistani support for the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir? Not quite. Indian signals intelligence officials say there has been no reduction in military communications traffic between terrorists and their control stations in Pakistan. Individual terror cells â witness the recent bombings in Varanasi or the spate of fire-fights in Jammu and Kashmir â remain active.

Although newspapers have reported that the United Jihad Council (UJC) protesters have been arrested, their infrastructure remains in place.

What, then, is going on?

A deteriorating relationship

It has long been evident that the happy marriage between General Musharraf and his Islamist allies has been souring. Lashkar chairman Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, for one, has been increasingly critical of the Pakistan President. In a recent article, Saeed wrote: "After 9/11, Pakistan made a foreign policy U-turn to accommodate American interests. It was said that backing U.S. would help solve the Kashmir problem and protect our nuclear programme. But none of this has materialised."

Instead, Saeed argued in a recent sermon at the al-Qudsia mosque in Lahore, strong international pressures had built up for "the termination of the jihad in Kashmir." "Conspiracies," he asserted, "are being hatched against Pakistan's atomic programme." "President Abdul Kalam, who helped make India a nuclear power, sits across to discuss matters with Bush," the Jamaat ud-Dawa leader noted, "while the father of Pakistan's atomic programme, Abdul Qadir Khan is rotting in a jail cell."

To Saeed, the recent visit of President George W. Bush to Pakistan, during which the United States reiterated calls for an end to the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir, demonstrated the failure of General Musharraf's policies. "But we are happy," Saeed said, "for the situation is now more conducive for jihad." "It is better our rulers give up their anti-jihad policies and re-orient the foreign policy of Pakistan according to tenets of Islam," an editorial on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa website advises.

None of this polemic is new. At the Jamaat-ud-Dawa's annual Takmeel-e-Pakistan (Fulfilment of the Idea of Pakistan) convention, which was held at Lahore in August last year, Saeed articulated many of the same ideas. He called for mandatory recruitment of all Pakistani men to the jihad, the conquest of parts of India, and held the U.S. responsible not just for the creation of Bangladesh but a still-unfinished conspiracy, which would use India and Israel to "ruin Pakistan."

Signs that the Jamaat-ud-Dawa was attempting to integrate itself with the spectrum of anti-Musharraf forces in Pakistan were evident at the convention. It was addressed, for example, by Zaeem Qadri, a functionary responsible for the public relations work of the former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League in Punjab. Maulana Saifuddin Saif, the secretary-general of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, also addressed the convention. No representatives of the Pakistani state, by contrast, were on hand.

Also significant was the fact that a representative of the Pakistan-based leadership of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference was on hand â the political face of the UJC leaders with whom the Lashkar has now allied. APHC representative Abdullah Malik delivered an incendiary address, asserting that the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir would continue "until the destruction of India."

The jihad and Pakistani politics

Does all this mean that there is a fundamental reversal in the decades-long relationship between jihadi forces and the Pakistani state? No and yes are both valid answers.

Part of the reason why the UJC's protests have surprised experts is that the discourse on jihadi organisations suffers from a major epistemological error. Pakistan's Islamist armies are often understood, correctly, to have an international agenda. Jihadi wars against India or Afghanistan are, without dispute, a central concern for such organisations. What is often forgotten is that they also have a domestic agenda: harvesting and expending political power in Pakistan itself.

To understand the evolving Islamist posture on Jammu and Kashmir, one must engage with the multiple pressures on Pakistani policy-making. Ever since the India-Pakistan near-war of 2001-2002, the U.S. has been concerned that continued jihadi violence could lead the nuclear-armed adversaries into a calamitous conflict. Links between Pakistani Islamist groups and both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda have also added increasing urgency to the U.S. calls for the jihadi zoo to be shut down.

American pressure, though, isn't the only reason for Gen. Musharraf's changing agenda. Beset by multiple internal crises, the Pakistan President must be acutely aware that his position within the armed forces is increasingly fragile. Pakistan's corps commanders, although loyal to their chain of command, have demonstrated the will to remove leaders who threaten their corporate interests. General Yahya Khan, General Ayub Khan, and General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq were deposed, after all, by palace revolts.

As things stand, Gen. Musharraf's position is tenuous as never before. On the one hand, his regime is confronted with potentially existence-threatening wars in Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province. On the other, the brief economic resurgence the Pakistan President succeeded in bringing about has also begun to diminish. Double-digit inflation has alienated General Musharraf's supporters among the urban middle class, while at once feeding resentment among the growing ranks of the poor.

Heading into the 2007 elections, Gen. Musharraf has few friends. Jamaat-e-Islami leader Qazi Husain Ahmad has said his party will not participate in an election over which General Musharraf presides. Others in the MMA, too, seem to think capitalising on the anti-Musharraf mood would offer Islamists greater opportunities for expansion than backing a process that allowed him a central role in government. Neither are former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif likely to back a regime that includes General Musharraf.

In recent months, there have been more than a few signs that jihadi organisations have been sensing that Gen. Musharraf's regime is edging ever-closer to the abyss. Predictably, some in their ranks now seem to think that joining in a larger Islamist shove might just be in the interests of their organisations. Just this month, for example, top Lashkar ideologue Abdul Rahman Makki joined in Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal protests against General Musharraf, the first time his organisation had done so.

Within Jammu and Kashmir, too, traditional supporters of the Pakistani state have been distancing themselves from General Musharraf. In an acid January 28 statement, Syed Ali Shah Geelani said the Pakistan President had "no mandate to propose a political solution unacceptable to the people of occupied Jammu and Kashmir." "It is the Kashmiris who will decide the future of the freedom struggle," the Islamist leader said, "not President Musharraf."

None of this, of course, is surprising. Pakistan's Islamists have long had an instrumentalist relationship with the state apparatus, and served its interests in campaigns as disparate as the war of genocide against Bangladesh nationalists in 1971 or the jihad against India. At the same time, however, they have been quick to turn on their establishment allies when it seemed the effort would yield dividends: the Islamist protests that played a major role in undermining President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's regime are a case in point.

A major triumph on the Kashmir issue could help Gen. Musharraf beat off disaster. Some in New Delhi believe Gen. Musharraf hopes to share a platform with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh later this year, at which politicians from both sides of the Line of Control will begin discussions on the future of Jammu and Kashmir â a kind of grand version of the round-table held in New Delhi last month. However, continued violence would make such a dialogue near impossible.

Gen. Musharraf's tactical interests demand, therefore, that jihadi violence diminish. Jihadi organisations, though, have neither the intention nor desire to sacrifice their own existence for his perpetuation. Participation in a dialogue process in which they are just one of several voices is a less-than-tempting offer. The terrorists now on hunger strike in Muzaffarabad have therefore made it clear they are looking forward to a Pakistan in which their political representatives, not Gen. Musharraf, call the shots.

Can the General find the will â and the resources â to hit back? Just how the impasse in Muzaffarabad ends will make clear whether a decisive break between the Pakistani state and the Islamist armies it has nurtured for decades is likely â or even possible.

03-15-2006, 01:55 AM

Hizb chief Syed Sallahuddin arrested
QUOTEHizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Sallahuddin was arrested in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), along with seven other top Kashmiri militant leaders during a demonstration, reports reaching here said.

03-17-2006, 05:39 PM

QUOTEGilgit-Baltistan part of J&K: India
http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/web1/06mar11/news.htm#9
NEW DELHI, Mar 10:

Â India today reaffirmed that the Gilgit-Baltistan region is a part of Jammu and Kashmir State which, on the basis of its accession in 1947, is an intergral part of the country.

Â "We would like to reaffirm that the region of Gilgit-Baltistan is a part of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, which, on the basis of its accession in 1947, is an integral part of India," an External Affairs Ministry spokesman said in reply to a questtion.

Â The spokesman was commenting on reports that some Pakistani missions were circulating a new map of Jammu and Kashmir depicting the so-called Northern Areas of Gilgit-Baltistan as a separate entity and only the rest of the J and K as a State.

Â "We have seen the reports in the Pakistani media," the spokesman said.

Â He said the Pakistan Foreign Office had, however, denied that it had circulated any new map. (UNI)

03-19-2006, 06:46 AM

Jawans injured as ultras blast explosive-laden carQUOTESRINAGAR: Ten persons, including nine soldiers, were injured when pro-Pakistan Hizb-ul Mujahideen ultras detonated an explosive-laden car in Rawalpora area here on Saturday, a police spokesman said.

The explosion took place at around 9.15 a.m. on Old Airport Road when an Army convoy passing through the area hit one of the vehicles, the spokesman said. The Army vehicle was partially damaged and nine jawans and a girl were injured in the incident, he said.

The explosive-laden car was blown to pieces, the spokesman said adding that the Hizb-ul Mujahideen outfit had claimed responsibility for the blast.

03-19-2006, 09:30 PM

LoC could be basis of Kashmir solution: Narayanan
QUOTEEven so, Narayanan did not rule out a dialogue with Pakistan-based United Jehad Council chairman Syed Salahuddin.

Losers have decided to give land to Pakistan, no problem with any talk with terrorist.

QUOTEHolding that the nuclear deal would not dent India's nuclear capability, Narayanan made it clear that New Delhi will not consider new conditions for the pact.
Which deal, lets see whether Congress will pass any ??????

**acharya** · 03-20-2006, 12:57 AM

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Kashmiri Pandits still in camps after 15 years

WASHINGTON: The Indo-American Kashmir Forum, which is based here, has claimed that there are 350,000 internally displaced Pandits living outside the Kashmir Valley.

In August 2004, the Jammu and Kashmir government announced plans to help displaced Kashmiri Pandits return to the Valley, but at yearâs end, no such movement had taken place, Vijay Sazawal of the Indo-American Kashmir Forum said in a statement at the weekend.

According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, at least 650,000 persons were displaced due to conflicts in Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat, and the northeast. There was no progress on the plight of around 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits who were forced to flee the Kashmir Valley in the early 1990s. The Pandits remained in refugee camps in Jammu and New Delhi, some 15 years after the start of the insurgency, and were unable to return to their homes because of safety concerns, including the on-going killings of Hindus in the state.

Indian government statistics show that there were 55,476 registered Kashmiri Pandit families living in Jammu, 34,088 in Delhi, and 19,338 in other states receiving government support. Government-managed camps housed 5,778 families in Delhi and Jammu. The government provided monthly cash relief of $70 (Rs 3,000) and basic dry rations to the 14,869 families in Jammu. In Delhi, authorities provided $75 (Rs 3,200) to 4,100 families. khalid hasan

03-25-2006, 04:26 AM

Pioneer
QUOTEA page in the life of a terrorist 
Praveen Kumar / New Delhi
The story of Mohammad Hussain Fazili, who has been charge-sheeted in the pre-Diwali blast cases, illustrates how youngsters like him are being lured by various terrorist outfits to create havoc in Jammu and Kashmir and in other parts of country including the national Capital. Fazili is one of the conspirators of the October 29 blasts in the Capital last year.

Fazili has admitted before the police that he started his career as a terrorist in the year 1995 and from then on he continued to be a part of several deadly operations in Jammu & Kashmir.

The statement of Mohammad Hussain Fazili before the police does raise several questions about his links with several terrorist outfits of Pakistan and the knowledge of the conspiracy, much before its occurrence. During interrogation the accused, Mohammad Hussain Fazili, disclosed that he in 1995 had joined a terrorist group, Al Jehad and attended several Jehadi lectures and weapon handling trainings in a local mosque of Srinagar.

In 1997 he joined Hizbul Muzahaddin and thereafter went for training to Pakistan. He remained there till October 1998. After that he remained involved in a number of operations to attack the military, para military and police forces in which a number of his associates got killed. He, however, survived. In 2001, he alongwith Rafiq, went for training to Pakistan to carry out various terrorist activities in India. But soon after their return from Pakistan both of them got arrested. In 2003 he got released from jail and again joined Mohammad Rafiq.

In the same year, the accused met one Mansoor, a resident of Pakistan occupied Kashmir, and on his invitation both of them joined Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and started working for that organisation. In his statement, however, Fazili denied having been involved in the Delhi blasts. He disclosed that when Mohammad Rafiq Shah was assigned the task of bomb explosions in Delhi, he was also asked by Rafiq to join him in the operation. But he refused to do so. He had, however, till then received all information related to the blasts.

Rafiq has been chargesheeted in the Paharganj case too as he was one of the main conspirators who had been engaged in planning the conspiracy from its beginning. Rafiq has even admitted before the police that he was given "Mansoor" as a code for this operation. Analysis of call details of mobile phones figured in the investigations revealed that Rafiq was in regular touch with Dar and other Lashkar operatives in Pakistan, which included Mohammad Hussain Fazili. On October 29 he along with other militants of Lashkar caused the serial blasts in Delhi, killing 65 innocent people and injuring around 200.

04-04-2006, 09:25 PM

Hurriyat wants China, Pak says noQUOTEFarooq was apparently referring to Aksi Chin, a part of Ladakh, ceded by Pakistan to China in 1963.

Aslam said Farooq did not refer to the territory under Chinese control. She said his argument was that âChina was big player being largest and influential country in this region. That is why it has to be associated with the peace processâ

Now we know who is Farooq 's paymaster. China's involvement is no surprise here.

04-06-2006, 12:38 AM

QUOTEWhat is Pakistan's endgame? 
Pioneer.com
G Parthasarathy
Diehard members of the Pakistani establishment have been lamenting for the past year, over what they say is India's "insincerity" in resolving the Kashmir issue and in not responding to General Pervez Musharraf's oft repeated proposals for "demilitarisation", "self-governance" and "joint management" in Jammu and Kashmir.

Being a cautious and thoughtful person, not given to knee-jerk reactions, Mr Manmohan Singh was evidently waiting for an appropriate occasion to outline his vision of the future of India-Pakistan relations. In the meantime, a wide ranging dialogue had been initiated with all sections of public opinion in Jammu and Kashmir.

One "round table" was held and another such meeting is scheduled to be held in Srinagar in May, where hopefully the increasingly marginalised members of the separatist Hurriyat Conference, who do little except faithfully endorse everything that Gen Musharraf says, will participate.

With the November 2003 ceasefire along the Line of Control holding and with a series of new initiatives like the reestablishment of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service and the Khokhrapar-Munnabao rail service being welcomed internationally, Mr Manmohan Singh evidently saw the inauguration of the Amritsar-Nankana Sahib Bus Service as an ideal occasion to spell out his vision for the future. While the bus service was inaugurated in India with great fanfare, the Pakistan side chose to treat the event in a very low key manner, without the customary welcome that one would have expected from at least Punjab's Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi.

I have personally been witness since 1982 to Sikh pilgrims headed for Nankana Sahib being received by not only the Punjab Chief Minister, but also by Pakistan's President and Prime Minister, along with "Khalistan" activists from abroad like Ganga Singh Dhillon, with Gurudwaras in Lahore and Nankana Sahib full of posters and banners demanding the creation of "Khalistan". 

It is no secret that the family of Pakistan Muslim League President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and his cousin Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi has been responsible for inciting Sikh pilgrims visiting their shrines in Pakistan ever since 1979.

Why was the inauguration of the Amritsar-Nankana Sahib virtually boycotted by high Pakistani functionaries? With Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurating the bus service amidst tremendous enthusiasm in Punjab, it is evident that New Delhi is confident that Punjab is going to be in the forefront of the national endeavour for accelerated economic growth and that Pakistan cannot significantly exploit any residual separatist sentiments in the State. Pakistan evidently realises this reality, but still continues to harbour activists of terrorist groups like the Babbar Khalsa.

In his address in Amritsar, Mr Manmohan Singh reflected India's confidence in the strength of its pluralistic society when he spoke of encouraging "people-to-people contacts" and urged that through such attempts we should "explore a vision for a cooperative common future for our two nations". The Prime Minister obviously envisages a peace process driven by the people.

But is such a peoples' driven process possible when our security establishment advocates rigid visa and police reporting procedures for ordinary Pakistanis visiting India, be they artistes, businessmen, academics or tourists? Mr Manmohan Singh will first have to persuade his security establishment and drastically change existing visa and police reporting procedures, if necessary unilaterally, if we are to win the goodwill and understanding of ordinary Pakistanis visiting India. This, I have found, in practice, is easier said than done.

Pakistan has reacted cautiously to the references made to the issue of Jammu and Kashmir in Mr Manmohan Singh's carefully crafted address in Amritsar. While rejecting his assertion that it "is a mistake to link normalisation of other relations with finding a solution to Jammu and Kashmir", Pakistan has made generally positive noises about other proposals he made.

While Gen Musharraf has spoken tirelessly of "self-governance" in Jammu and Kashmir, he has remained vague on what constitutes "self-governance" and whether "self-governance" will be equally applicable to both Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and the Northern Areas.

Mr Manmohan Singh has, however, come forward with the call that "both sides should begin a dialogue with the people in their areas of control to improve the quality of governance so as to give people on both sides a greater chance in leading a life of dignity and self-respect".

Thus, while Gen Musharraf has spoken vaguely of "self-governance," Mr Manmohan Singh has spoken of "good governance". "Self-governance" is just one aspect of "good governance". This thinking will hopefully be reflected in the next round table conference in Srinagar. Gen Musharraf will perhaps, in the meantime, ponder how he can move towards "good governance" in PoK and the Northern Areas.

Mr Manmohan Singh also responded in Amritsar to Gen Musharraf's call for "joint management" of Jammu and Kashmir. He proclaimed: "I also envisage a situation where the two parts of Jammu and Kashmir can, with the active encouragement of the Governments of India and Pakistan, work out cooperative, consultative mechanisms so as to maximise the gains of cooperation in solving problems of social and economic development of the region".

While Gen Musharraf's proposal of "Joint Management" opens up touchy and unsolvable issues of sovereignty, the economist, Mr Manmohan Singh, envisages a situation where borders and boundaries between India and Pakistan, including in Jammu and Kashmir, become as irrelevant as they are increasingly becoming elsewhere, in a world economic order dealing with the challenges of globalisation.

But, given Pakistan's inhibitions in even abiding by commitments it has made while signing the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA), will Islamabad show the necessary statesmanship to implement its commitment in Kathmandu to move towards a South Asian Customs Union and thereafter towards a towards South Asian Economic Union, where borders become increasingly porous and irrelevant?

Mr Manmohan Singh expressed the hope that the peace process would "ultimately culminate" in a "Treaty of Peace Security and Friendship" with Pakistan. Indira Gandhi had sent the draft for a Peace and Friendship Treaty to Islamabad in July 1984 through the then Foreign Secretary, Mr MK Rasgotra. General Zia-ul Haq made a few positive noises, but soon buried the proposal.

It is evident that like Pakistan's proposal for "demilitarisation" of Jammu and Kashmir, Mr Manmohan Singh's proposal can at best be described as one that will have to await more propitious times before it can be implemented. This can happen only when the present atmosphere of mutual suspicions and differences is replaced by a sustained period of trust, confidence and extensive bilateral and regional cooperation.

While there is scope for optimism now in moving ahead in the peace process with Pakistan, it would not be prudent on the part of Mr Manmohan Singh to visit Islamabad without proper preparations that ensure a positive outcome for his visit. The Sir Creek issue seems to be moving toward a resolution, with comprehensive surveys being carried out.

The Siachen issue can be resolved if the agreement leaves no ambiguity about existing ground positions and the precise areas to be demilitarised, along with foolproof procedures for verification. Further, given the fact that both Gen Musharraf and Mr Manmohan Singh appear to agree that there can be no change of existing boundaries, it should be possible to find some common ground on issues pertaining to Jammu and Kashmir, though one is still not clear what Pakistan's end game is.

In the meantime, one hopes that despite the large jihadi presence now in PoK, Gen Musharraf will fulfill his commitment of January 6, 2004, to not to allow territory under Pakistan's control to be used for terrorism.

**acharya** · 04-08-2006, 06:58 AM

Mirwaiz meets President

ONE would agree with the President that the Indo-Pak composite dialogue needs to be accelerated and that side by side with CBMs there ought to be progress on the Kashmir dispute. But it would be difficult to accept the remark he made when he met Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who called on him at GHQ on Monday, that Pakistan continues to stand by the people of Kashmir. None of the raft of proposals that have emanated from Islamabad over the past two years or so seem to justify that statement. Some would tend to be mere palliatives, but not the remedy, while others are not easy to understand. Demilitarisation would indeed be helpful in reducing the atrocities the 700,000-strong Indian security forces are committing every day. The terrorised citizens of Held Kashmir would feel relieved of the oppressive presence of these forces, which demolish houses, arrest or shoot down inmates at will. But once the troops are out of the Valley, New Delhi would lose out on the argument that Islamabad was infiltrating 'terrorists' into Held Kashmir, which was fuelling what it would call 'insurgency' to make it necessary to keep armed forces there. Another setback of demilitarisation for India would be that Kashmiris, now suppressed, would open up to demand freedom from its hold, much to its shame in the eyes of the world. New Delhi would only agree to do so if it otherwise felt ready to go for a solution to people's liking. Islamabad must insist on demilitarisation as a stepping stone to a just solution.
Unfortunately, our various options do not point to a mechanism for seeking out Kashmiris' aspirations. In fact, we have set aside the only viable proposition of eliciting their views i.e., the UNSC role. That the LoC could not be the basis of final solution is a concrete point but what next? Self-governance, also on the cards as far as we are concerned, would be a poor substitute and something that does not suggest how it would make for settlement in future. Joint control is a nebulous idea. Flexibility also falls in the realm of ambiguity. Similarly for the rest of the proposals. If they have been thought out in conclusive details, the public has been kept in the dark. It would be too much to expect it to endorse them, without getting to know what they really stand for.
Somehow Dr Manmohan Singh's sincerity in resolving Kashmir, which our leadership so often points to, is hardly visible in action. With the peace process more than two years old and a host of CBMs in place, he has not wavered from the stand that there would be no change in the 'Indian' border. For him Kashmir is India's atoot ang. He can at best concede that the LoC be regarded as international border. In any case, should he be interested in resolving the dispute on the basis of justice and equity, he should conduct meaningful, result-oriented negotiations rather than drag his feet.

04-13-2006, 06:23 AM

QUOTEMilitants kill IB officer 
Â Khursheed Wani
Srinagar
Pioneer.comÂ
MILITANTS OF Hizbul Mujahideen outfit shot dead an officer of Intelligence Bureau (IB) in a south Kashmir on Wednesday. His another associate was injured in the attack when they were traveling in a private car.
Sources said militants ambushed the car near Sherabad village in Tral belt at 12:30 pm on Wednesday. An Assistant Sub Inspector Vinod Kumar died on spot while Inspector pawan Kumar alongwith driver Dinesh Kumar were critically injured.

Hizbul Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attack. A spokesperson of the outfit told newspaper offices on phone that they had specific information about the movement of IB officials in the area.

04-16-2006, 05:01 AM

Antulay's proclamation for vicious vivisection of India
V SUNDARAM

 'Oh mischief! Though art swift to enter in the thoughts of desperate men! ? Shakespeare 

The great difference between the real statesman and the pretender is, that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present; the pretender lives by the day, and acts on expediency; the statesman acts on enduring principles and for immortality. What morality requires, true statesmanship should accept. The three great ends for a statesman are: security to possessors, facility to acquirers and liberty and hope to the people.

True statesmanship is the art of changing a nation from what it is into what it ought to be. Mark Twain said: 'In statesmanship get formalities right, never mind about the moralities'. Viewed from the angles of both formalities and moralities, I am rather sceptical as to whether A.R. Antulay, Union Minister for Minority Affairs, is politically right in going full steam ahead to notify Hindus in Jammu & Kashmir, the North East and Punjab as a 'MINORITY' from the larger angle of preservation of national integrity and security. He is reported to have stated: 'This is my own idea given to me by God'. He has already scheduled consultations with Kashmiri Pundits on April 15 and again on April 22 to finalise the proposal, prior to the approval of the Union Cabinet. It is expected that these meetings will be attended by representatives of the State Government as well as those of the Union Home Ministry.

Mahatma Gandhi had hoped that Kashmir would be a shining symbol of secularism after independence. His dreams have been turned into ashes because of the terror unleashed by Pakistan-backed militants and communal elements in Kashmir during the last 20 years, who have resorted to selective victimization and killing of hundreds of Hindus. Thus in the late 1980s was set in motion the sad and cruel process of an exodus of practically the entire Hindu community (Kashmiri Pundits) from the place of their origin and birth for more than two thousand years, a fact which has not found adequate media coverage either in India or abroad. Pro-Pakistan militant organizations, such as the Hizb-Ul-Mujahideen, Harkat-Ul-Ansar and Lashkar-E-Toiba have played havoc in the valley by letting loose a reign of terror. This has resulted in the killing of hundreds of innocent people, rape and molestation of woman folk, ransacking of houses and looting of people's property by these fanatic militants.

Kashmiri Pundits and their sympathizers bore the brunt of this organized genocide. Ruthless killing of innocent people accelerated the migration process till almost the entire population of Kashmiri pundits was forced to migrate to safer areas in Jammu and other parts of the country. Undergoing a Diaspora, this small, well educated, peaceful and talented community has got scattered through out the country and are living presently under pitiable conditions in make shift refugee camps.

To give some relevant statistics in this context, out of a total Kashmiri Pundit population of about 4,25,000 in Jammu & Kashmir in 1989, only 15,000 Pundits are presently living in the Kashmir Valley. 1800 Kashmiri Pundits have been killed by the Pakistan-sponsored militants. About 2.2 lakhs have moved to Jammu Region as migrants, while another 1.44 lakhs are reported to be living in Delhi as refugees. About 50,000 Kashmiri Pundits are reported to be living in different cities in India as migrants. A large number of these helpless people, having been deprived of their ancestral homes in Kashmir, are now confined in unhygienic shanties and slums. There exist only a few parallels in world history, when the entire population of a particular religious minority community had been forced to leave their place of origin in such a brutal manner, leaving behind all their movable and immovable assets. The psychological trauma undergone by the Kashmiri Pundits is a dark chapter in the long and troubled history of India. Thanks to the Congress policy of pseudo-secularism founded on the bed-rock of minority appeasement at the expense of Hindu majority, all the peace loving Muslims of India are more concerned about the rights of Muslims in Palestine than about the rights of Kashmiri Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists in Kashmir. 

Moderate Kashmiris say that what has been destroyed is something called ?kashmiriat?, an invisible but palpable understanding that Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and others would live together peaceably. Today, almost 55 years after the partition, the culture of secularism has been eroded and replaced by a culture of fundamentalism. And Antulay is trying to confirm this position by declaring the Hindus in Jammu & Kashmir as an Ethnic Minority. 

There is an informed section of Muslim opinion which feels that the exodus of Kashmiri Pundits has adversely affected the standards of teaching and education in the Kashmir Valley. Qudsia Shah, former president of the women's college in Srinagar has stated: 'The exodus of Hindus is not good for Kashmir. Kashmir Pundits being liberal and broad-minded are good teachers. We Muslims are the losers...Academic standards have dropped, to say the least.' The new ethos is that of Islamic fundamentalist education, with veiled little schoolgirls, and women in purdah, in a land that was once a happy haven of peace. A new gun-culture has replaced the culture of harmony that once epitomised 'the rich, artistic, syncretic culture' of the valley. Amitabh Matoo, a Professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi also expresses the same view when he says: 'The real tragedy is that the ancient traditions of music, dance and literature forming the rich syncretic culture of Kashmir have been destroyed or forgotten.' 

As Minister for Minorities, A.R. Antulay should take immediate action to restore normalcy in Kashmir and pave the way for the Kashmiri Pundits living as refugees in different parts of India to get back to their original home under conditions of safety, security and peace. Instead of doing that, Antulay is trying to bandy words such as 'minority status' to the Hindus of Jammu and Kashmir without caring for the long-term consequences of his flippant semantic approach to the tough and substantive issue of established rights of a race going back to the dawn of history. Or is he doing it only after fully realizing the consequences as a pseudo-secularist politician committed only to the sole cause of appeasement of real Muslim/Christian minorities in the country under the newly created artificial umbrella of Hindu minority in Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab and the North Eastern States? At any rate all pseudo-secular politicians in India ?I mean the grisly gang of anti-Hindus ? would be delighted by Antulay's announcement that Hindus who are in majority in the country as a whole are going to be completely relegated to the status of officially declared 'minorities' in certain specific pockets of India like Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and the North East. It is feared that in these pockets by his newly announced policy, Antulay would make all the Hindus a minority both in the de jure and de facto sense. In the rest of the country, the Hindus though in de jure majority have already been reduced to the status of a de facto minority by all the unscrupulous pseudo-secular politicians like Antulay, and others of his tribe. In other words, Antulay's declaration is that Hindus in Jammu & Kashmir are voiceless minorities in a minority while the Hindus in the rest of India are 'voiceless minorities' in a majority. The UPA Government seems to have run out of ideas and therefore it is not surprising that Antulay is ruminating over the past, endeavouring to go back to the pre-partition days of Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan who were all the time concerned about ever shifting and ever shuffling Hindu-Muslim minorities in the swirling waters of ever-violent Islamic Communalism!

The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary. The Congress Party will never give up its game of political duplicity, playing with favourite words like majority and minority in regard to every issue affecting our national life. For Congress Party and Antulay, minority refers to the forces of secular good and majority to the forces of communal evil all the time. THIS IS THEIR ENTIRE LIFE-LINE. This is because, in Indian vote-bank politics, it is the minority crowd that dictates the language, and such a crowd often relinquishes the original core ideas it has been given more easily and more readily than the snappy catch words it has learned. Antulay may have his political reasons to choose this semantic trap for the Hindus but he has no right to drag the Indian nation as a whole into this deadly trap. He cannot take the Hindus of India into the secularly conceived and politically planted quagmire of minority politics. Is Antulay trying to create another mini-Pakistan in Kashmir by promoting the 'communal' cause of Hindu 'minoritysm'? Is he trying to create a mini-Christian State in the North East? Is he attempting to please Pakistan by declaring that the Hindus in Kashmir Valley are not only second class citizens stripped of all fundamental rights but also officially a minority community not fit to rule the State now and for ever? Antulay's proposal will only open the floodgates of public demands for different types of territorial divisions and demarcations based on every ground other than public interest or permanent national interest. Great caution should be exercised by our Prime Minister to restrain the wild enthusiasms of a run away politician like Antulay with a poor track record of probity in public life, in the larger interest of preservation of our nation's territorial integrity and survival of India as a nation.

(The writer is a retired IAS officer)
e-mail the writer at vsundaram@newstodaynet.com

04-19-2006, 01:38 AM

QUOTEMirwaiz calls for 'United State' of Kashmir
(Updated at 2000 PST)
Poonch: Moderate Hurriyat Chairman Mirwaiz Omar Farooq has called for a 'United State' of Kashmir, which will include the Azad Kashmir and Gilgit region besides Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.

Addressing a public meeting at Mendhar near Poonch, Mirwaiz reiterated demilitarisation of the strife-torn state.

He said that General Musharraf had assured him that Islamabad will honour any solution to the Kashmir issue, which was acceptable to the Kashmiri people, he said.

Elaborating on his proposal for a 'United State', the Mirwaiz said, "There should be separate assemblies for each region, which should be coordinated by a joint Parliament," he added.

04-25-2006, 10:27 AM

Intelligence warns against fresh violence in KashmirQUOTE Terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir have been directed by their sponsors in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to go in for selective killings of Hindus and security force personnel but avoid retaliation against police informers as part of their strategy to reinvigorate their "movement".

Intelligence officials say they have several wireless intercepts of conversations between terrorists in the state and their leaders in Pakistan that suggest that "terrorists are desperate to revive and rejuvenate the militancy in the state".

"By killing Hindus, the alienation of the Muslim majority from mujahideen (militants) could be controlled," said an intercept.

Killings of Hindus in the region began in August 1993 when terrorists in Doda district lined up 17 Hindu bus passengers and killed them after segregating them from Muslims.

Terrorists have also killed people they suspected to be informers of security forces. On many occasions, they have chopped off limbs of suspected informers, including women. In 2005, a woman suspected to be an informer was injected poison in Rajouri district.

Intercepts also reveal that terrorists have been asked to carry out "more and more 'fidayeen' (suicide) attacks on security personnel", to make them retaliate against civilians in a huff which would alienate them from the people.

04-26-2006, 12:44 AM

QUOTESrinagar: Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman, who aggressively campaigned for poll boycott, while reacting to the huge voter turnout has said that peoplesâ memory is weak and they are to be reminded of their sacrifices time and again. 

âHad government not impeded our election boycott campaign, the results would have been different,â Geelani was quoted by a local news agency KNS as saying.

Confessing that there was very little impact of poll boycott call, Geelani told KNS that people of Kashmir are being cheated in the name of development.

âThey (people) are not stable. Their memory is short-lived,â Geelani was quoted by KNS as saying.

He further told the news agency that people have turned more materialistic and that was not good for the nation
Which nation??????

Bharatvarsh · 04-30-2006, 04:59 AM

QUOTEFitzgerald: Why a jihad in Jammu-Kashmir?

Why do Muslim terrorists attack in Jammu-Kashmir? Because they can. The Muslim claim to Kashmir differs from their claim to all of India (or for that matter to Spain (Al-Andalus), to Israel, to Sicily, to the Balkans, to Bulgaria, to Rumania, to Hungary, and to all the areas once dominated by Muslims) only in the ability to push that claim. Of course, in the jihadist view the entire world in the end must submit to Islam and be dominated by Islam -- though non-Muslims may, should they accept what many Muslims continue to believe is perfectly just, live under those unambiguous conditions of humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity whose sum is the status we now describe as "dhimmitude".

Any land area, even within the Western countries where Muslims come to dominate, will by many of them be regarded as "Muslim land." The claims made by various local Muslims may seem comical to us, such as that for the "Caliphate" in Cologne, or the insistence that certain areas in Malmo or Rotterdam or Muslim-populated towns in France are not to be treated as any longer under the control of representatives of the Infidel nation-state, but they are quite serious. That seriousness is being demonstrated even now both by Muslims and by the representatives (police, firemen, teachers) of that nation-state, who are often too afraid not to comply with the Muslim demands that they stay out of what is no longer their territory.

Jammu-Kashmir is part of India. It is not part of Pakistan. And the notion that any part of India in which there is to be found a Muslim-majority population is one where therefore Muslim claims have legitimacy is absurd. For what would follow, logically, would be a turning of all sorts of places within India into little Muslim-ruled areas. And given that the Muslim rate of population growth is always higher, in India and elsewhere, then the non-Muslim population, and given that Muslims have not hesitated to push out large numbers of non-Muslims (think of the 400,000 Kashmiri Pandits forced to flee when threatened with death), either one takes a firm stand and rejects Muslim demands or, by even hinting at "negotiating," one emboldens the mujahedin. The Israelis have done the latter, to their own sorrow. In failing to make their own case, they have also failed to help Infidels in Europe understand that the siege against Israel, that Lesser Jihad, is hardly the only, or even the most important, of the local Jihads now being waged. And it will continue to be waged, using all the instruments now available, unless met with well-informed, implacable, and relentless opposition.

India should not be "negotiating" over Jammu-Kashmir. There is no possibility of such a negotiation satisfying Muslims permanently. Since India now possesses this part of Kashmir (Pakistan also controls part), any negotiation will only lead to further Indian concessions, possibly even the surrender of land. What Pakistan would offer -- a grand agreement to cease support for cross-border terrorism -- is no concession at all. Pakistan cannot offer up as a concession what it has a moral and legal duty to do anyway.

And the same is true elsewhere in the world. One suspects that the outside world will be unsympathetic to the Indians unless and until they all begin, at the same time, to talk about the belief-system of Islam, and why concessions here and there make no sense, given the ultimate unappeasable demands that Muslims must, if they are to be true Muslims, continue to make on all Infidels.

Doesn't it make more sense for Infidels everywhere to recognize this and to discuss it openly? This would force Muslims to discuss their own ideology, and be embarrassed or chagrined by such discussion, so that not only will Infidels start supporting each other in their local conflicts, but so that some Muslims will have to cease the taqiyya-and-tu-quoque, and begin to admit that something in Islam, a good deal in Islam, must change if it is not to make Muslims permanently immiscible and un-integrable and regarded with permanent suspicion and hostility by Infidels everywhere.

Hindu civilization in Jammu-Kashmir should be defended. It is a pity that so many in India among those who are called, quite loosely and often quite comically, "intellectuals" -- all shy away from anything that might conceivably be taken as a defense of Hindu (or Sikh) civilization, or culture. Above all, no thoroughly modern Indian will dare suggest that Islam has done great damage to Jammu and Kasmir, as well as to India as a whole, and to Indian civilization. No, there are exceptions -- such as that cosmopolitan of Indian descent, V. S. Naipaul, who is not afraid of anyone. There are Indian-Americans (Hindu, Sikh, and even disaffected ex-Muslims) and their counterparts in Great Britain, who also know how silly it is not to make the case, to ignore history, or to shy away from the slightest hint of Hindutva, which is often mocked. Why, exactly? Is K. S. Lal to be mocked for "The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India"? Is Sir Jahundath Sarkar? Are all the other Hindu historians of India who have been unafraid to discuss what Muslim rule did to India?

Those of us who are not Indian should find out a good deal more about what happened on the subcontinent, and cease to so readily accept the "advanced" view which holds that anything smacking of "communalism" (a word used to indicate, of course, those who wish to show their sympathetic interest in, and identification with, Hindu India, and who refuse to play the game of sanitizing the history of Muslim rule) is ipso facto evil.

One hopes that those in the Western world who are articulate and aware, and of Indian (Hindu or Sikh descent, primarily) will help to educate others -- but that can only be done once one has educated oneself. Lal and Sarkar should be household words. The two volumes in which Sita Ram Goel simply lists tens of thousands of Hindu sites destroyed should be better known. Those Indians who become internationally famous, and always -- as a matter of course -- are quick to demonstrate that they have absolutely nothing to do with "communalism" (i.e., Hindu causes, Hindu history, Hindu interests) -- one thinks here of Amartya Sen -- would do better to study their own history, and not to assume that intelligent Hindus and Sikhs who show a bit of that supposedly terrible "communalism" must be wrong. They aren't. 

But it is difficult for them to make their voices heard, given the received ideas, and cliches, of the day -- both those concerning Jammu-Kashmir, and those concerning the Jihad in general.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/011221.php
Well it seems some Americans are more aware of things more than many moron Hindus are.

04-30-2006, 06:10 AM

Commies books are so twisted in India and it only teaches hatred towards Indic civilization.
Fitzgerald had made valid points. West is realizing now after they are invaded by Islam with same barbaric tactic, 9/11 and other blast by Muslims around world are good examples.

Interesting post by Infidel Pride on above link.

Bharatvarsh · 05-01-2006, 04:56 AM

Communal harmony in action:

QUOTEMilitants abduct Hindus in J&K, 4 dead, 3 missingÂ
Mohit Kandhari | Jammu
Four Hindus were killed and three have gone missing since Sunday after noon after being abducted by suspected militants from Village Ludana near Basantgarh in Udhampur district.

According to preliminary reports, Hizbul Mujahideen militants abducted 7 Hindus including three brothers from Ludana around 3.00 pm on Sunday. In the evening the four bodies were recovered from a nearby place, while the whereabouts of three are unknown.

Sources said Sunday's afternoon abduction of seven Hindus followed another such incident earlier in the day. Militants abducted Seraj Din and Rukum Din early on Sunday but released them sometime around noon.

The Doda-Udhampur Police, have confirmed the incident and a search operation has been launched.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?m...&counter_img=12

**Hauma Hamiddha** · 05-01-2006, 10:33 AM

More lessons in communal harmony from our Moslem brethren

Moslems are always active in maintaining communal harmony- would it not be really harmonious system if there were no Hindus left at all <!--emo& Confused

leepy--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sleepysmileyanim.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sleepysmileyanim.gif' />

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