Chapter 3 continues…

The objective was to rub out all traces of non-Muslim Kashmir culture, and the Islamic jihadi terrorists have almost accomplished their objective in a nation of 82 per cent Hindus. Indians cannot rest till these displayed Kashmiri non-Muslims are restored to their homes in Kashmir Valley.

Terrorists have recruited thousands of young Muslims of the Valley, since then and coerced them to cross the LAC (Line of Actual Control), to undergo training in weapons and explosives in various training camps set up in Pak-occupied Kashmir, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Those of local youth who resisted were kidnapped and even tortured, some killed. In this second phase of militancy, the local Muslims bore the brunt of atrocities by the terrorists and other mercenaries.

A series of assassinations and bomb attacks on social and political activists belonging to nationalist and liberal sections of Muslim society in Kashmir were carried out to destroy established political institutions and to thwart democracy in the state. The Chief of Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hafiz Mohammad Khan, went on record to state: “Democracy is among the menaces we inherited.... These are all useless practices and part of the system we are fighting against. If God gives us a chance, we will try to bring in the pure concept of an Islamic Caliphate.”

The possibility of establishing a new Islamic Caliphate running from Kashmir to Pakistan through Afghanistan and the new States of Central Asia was propagated by the Islamist terrorists to motivate the people of Kashmir. The leader of Jamaat-e-Islami (Pakistan) Qazi Hussain Ahmed, on the Kashmir Solidarity day in Rawalpindi in February 1992, had also declared that, “a great Islamic state, spreading from Kashmir to Central Asia would emerge after the independence of Kashmir.”But there was an unexpected consequence of this war cry. Jihad, though forged unity between the Afghan Mujahideen and Kashmiri militants, nevertheless caused the insurgency in Kashmir to lose its indigenous character which the JKLF had fostered. Islamic radicals, besides and Afghan and Pakistani mercenaries, have now emerged as leaders, alienating the local Kashmiri youth from the movement.

To be continued…