| Saturday , December 6 , 2014 |
Imtiaz Ahmad , Hindustan Times
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Mumbai terror attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed criticised New Delhi on Friday for conducting what he termed were sham elections in Kashmir and said “the battle of Indian subcontinent is inevitable”. Saeed also asked why Prime Minister Narendra Modi was “visiting Kashmir again and again”, saying this was part of a larger conspiracy to silence the people of the state.
The Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) chief addressed a party convention in Lahore on a day alleged Pakistan-sponsored militants staged a string of attacks in the Valley.
“Ghazwae Hind is inevitable, Kashmir will be freed, 1971 will be avenged and Ahmedabad Gujrat victims will get justice Insha Allah,” Saeed tweeted.
Thousands of people arrived in Lahore this week to participate in the two-day convention that began at the Minar-e-Pakistan grounds on Friday. Many of those attending are volunteers and members of the JuD recruited after the outfit carried out relief work in the country through its social welfare wing, the Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF).
The BJP wanted to win in Kashmir by foul means to give an impression to the world that Kashmir was not a disputed territory, said Saeed. “We will not let that happen.”
The JuD chief said he wanted to get all Pakistani political parties on one platform so they could have a common policy on Kashmir.
“We should work in a manner so that there is no confusion over what our stand is,” he said.
Saeed said his organisation would continue to “help their Kashmiri brethren on the other side of the border”. In his hour-long speech, he also vowed to extract revenge from India for the role he said New Delhi played in Pakistan’s split in 1971.
“No one can stop us in our just struggle,” he said. “They are conspiring against us and India wants us to abandon our nuclear programme”.
The JuD chief said the US and Indian governments were trying to silence him, and praised Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for raising the Kashmir issue in the United Nations without being cowed by the pro-India lobby in Islamabad.
"If India can send troops to Afghanistan to help the US, then Mujahideen have every right to go to Kashmir and help their brethren," he said.
The two-day JuD congregation, held with logistical support from the Pakistan government, concluded Friday.
The Nawaz Sharif government had run two special trains from Karachi and Hyderabad in view of the JuD event.
'Mainstreaming of terrorism'
India said Pakistan's support to UN-designated terrorist Saeed and his JuD was "nothing short of mainstreaming of terrorism."
"This was an event which took place in national monument in Pakistan. It was an event (for which) large number of police personnel were deployed.
"And it was an event by an organisation which is proscribed not only by India but the US, the UK, Australia and the UN... Also it was addressed by an individual who is designated as a terrorist by the UN Securitry Council," external affairs ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said.
(With PTI inputs)
'Terrible day' for army and J&K poll |
| Sankarshan Thakur |
 Lt Col Sankalp Kumar, who was killed in the Uri encounter. (PTI) The first two rounds of Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir went by peacefully and attracted record 70 per cent-plus ballot; today's widely apprehended eruption could well scare turnouts into a tailspin. Three strikes, beginning with a pre-dawn fidayeen assault on an army ordnance camp close to the LoC near Uri, claimed 21 lives across Kashmir; eight of them were army soldiers, three policemen and eight militants. Soura in central Srinagar was besieged all afternoon as two militants - later killed - tore into a police checkpost and engaged paramilitary troops in a gun battle for nearly three hours. In Tral in south Kashmir, a grenade hurled at a bus-bay left two civilians dead and a dozen injured, five of them critically. But the most daring - and embarrassing - plot unfolded at the Mohra army camp near Uri. Armed with sophisticated weaponry and communication equipment, militants were able to sneak into an ordnance garrison and first set fire to part of a barracks where soldiers lay sleeping; four of the army's casualties are reported to have resulted not from combat but from being charred. Thereafter, it took nearly eight hours of incessant battling to mow the raiders and bring closure to their violent trespass. All of today's flashpoints are set for polls in the coming days - Tral and Uri on December 9, Srinagar on December 14.Ahead of that, on December 8, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to address his first election rally in Srinagar. The time and the targets of the attack may have been carefully picked. The terror spurt also coincided with a Lahore rally held by Jamaat-ud-Dawa Amir, Hafiz Sayeed, during which he renewed his call for "liberating" Kashmir and read a prayer for militants who had been killed conducting today's armed raids. Chief minister Omar Abdullah called it a "terrible day" for Kashmir and damned militants for "desperate levels" to disrupt peace.  Soldiers gather over the bodies of the suspected militants in Uri. (AFP) A feisty air has attended the Assembly poll campaign in Kashmir thus far. Candidates have taken their bandwagons into far and remote pockets, people have turned out in festive mood to fete them, singing, dancing. Equally, they have brought their enthusiasm to bear on polling day. Now, quite suddenly in the course of a gory day, the carefree air has expired and fear has been brought to loom over the remaining two rounds in the Valley. Many of the areas that await polls have traditionally voted low - Sopore and its adjoining pockets in Baramulla, Tral and Pulwama in south Kashmir; Srinagar city is where boycott calls have gone best responded. .jpg) A soldier takes position after the attack in Uri. (AFP) It is unlikely leaders of political parties and candidates will feel as free on the campaign trail henceforth. It is likelier caution will cramp their schedules and style. The PDP's Mehbooba Mufti has, for instance, scrapped a scheduled road show in Tral tomorrow. Her further poll outings, party sources said, are "under consideration". Other campaign stars are reassessing their schedules in view of today's grim turn. "The campaign won't stop," a senior NC leader said, "but nobody will head out as freely any more. Today's violence has ended the abandon of this campaign." Not how Kashmir's tallest leader, Sheikh Abdullah, would have wanted his anniversary observed, with a guillotine on his people's sentiment.  http://www.telegraphindia.com/1141206/jsp/frontpage/story_2361.jsp#.VIJdstKUeSo |
First Published: 22:04 IST(5/12/2014)
Last Updated: 02:13 IST(6/12/2014)
Last Updated: 02:13 IST(6/12/2014)
Mumbai terror attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed criticised New Delhi on Friday for conducting what he termed were sham elections in Kashmir and said “the battle of Indian subcontinent is inevitable”. Saeed also asked why Prime Minister Narendra Modi was “visiting Kashmir again and again”, saying this was part of a larger conspiracy to silence the people of the state.The Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) chief addressed a party convention in Lahore on a day alleged Pakistan-sponsored militants staged a string of attacks in the Valley.
“Ghazwae Hind is inevitable, Kashmir will be freed, 1971 will be avenged and Ahmedabad Gujrat victims will get justice Insha Allah,” Saeed tweeted.
Thousands of people arrived in Lahore this week to participate in the two-day convention that began at the Minar-e-Pakistan grounds on Friday. Many of those attending are volunteers and members of the JuD recruited after the outfit carried out relief work in the country through its social welfare wing, the Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF).
The BJP wanted to win in Kashmir by foul means to give an impression to the world that Kashmir was not a disputed territory, said Saeed. “We will not let that happen.”
The JuD chief said he wanted to get all Pakistani political parties on one platform so they could have a common policy on Kashmir.
“We should work in a manner so that there is no confusion over what our stand is,” he said.
Saeed said his organisation would continue to “help their Kashmiri brethren on the other side of the border”. In his hour-long speech, he also vowed to extract revenge from India for the role he said New Delhi played in Pakistan’s split in 1971.
“No one can stop us in our just struggle,” he said. “They are conspiring against us and India wants us to abandon our nuclear programme”.
The JuD chief said the US and Indian governments were trying to silence him, and praised Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for raising the Kashmir issue in the United Nations without being cowed by the pro-India lobby in Islamabad.
"If India can send troops to Afghanistan to help the US, then Mujahideen have every right to go to Kashmir and help their brethren," he said.
The two-day JuD congregation, held with logistical support from the Pakistan government, concluded Friday.
The Nawaz Sharif government had run two special trains from Karachi and Hyderabad in view of the JuD event.
'Mainstreaming of terrorism'
India said Pakistan's support to UN-designated terrorist Saeed and his JuD was "nothing short of mainstreaming of terrorism."
"This was an event which took place in national monument in Pakistan. It was an event (for which) large number of police personnel were deployed.
"And it was an event by an organisation which is proscribed not only by India but the US, the UK, Australia and the UN... Also it was addressed by an individual who is designated as a terrorist by the UN Securitry Council," external affairs ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said.
(With PTI inputs)