Title: ISI created hit
squad concept in early Nineties
Author: Dalip Singh
Publication: The Asian
Age
Date: February 28, 2000
The "hit squads" of the
militants which are now striking at security forces with impunity in the
Kashmir Valley, were conceptualised by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence
in the early Nineties.
Sources in the Intelligence
agencies said that the ISI had planned about the hit squads in early 1990s
because they were feeling frustrated due the return of normally in Kashmir
at that time.
According to the intelligence
reports, ISI had roped in Ikhwanul-Musalmeen, one of the many Kashmiri
militant outfits involved in the anti-India activities, for carrying out
this new phase of jehad in Valley.
Sources said that in
April 1992 "briefing sessions" of the members who were to form a part of
the hit squads were organised by Ikhwanul-Musalmeen chief Hilal Beg in
Kathmandu. After being brainwashed about the jehad, the members were directed
to carry out assassinations and abductions of VIPs in Kashmir and New Delhi.
The staff of the Pakistan's
embassy in Nepal, who helped the hijackers of the Indian Airlines aircraft,
was providing all logistic support to the Ikhwan-ul-Musalmeen for furthering
their nefarious designs. Yaseen Bhutt, who was the then deputy to Hilal
Beg, was in touch with Pak embassy in Nepal, particularly with the then
second secretary Kalimullah, said intelligence officers, who had been handling
Nepal.
The ISI has been targeting
security forces and government installations in their attempt to win over
the sympathy of the local population, which is not very happy with the
Jammu and Kashmir government.
The ISI is looking for
"weak spots" India has, whether it was left-wing terrorism, narco-terrorism
or pumping counterfeit notes, so that it could exploit them to fuel unrest
in the country. The recent has been their involvement in the religious
and sectarian violence.
ISI-trained Pakistan
national Shamshad Haider had masterminded the conspiracy to unleash sectarian
violence in Mumbai by garlanding an Babasaheb Ambedkar bust with shoes
on July 31, 1997, said intelligence sources,
In this case as well,
Kathmandu was the place where the conspiracy was hatched with the active
support of Pak embassy, which had provided Haider with a Take travel documents
and money.
The intelligence agencies
maintained that India has not been able to fence international border sector
in Jammu and Kashmir, since Pakistani forces on the other side of the border
have been firing to prevent any civil work.
The erection of barbed
wires would impair the movement of militant across the borders in Kashmir
region. The entire length of border in the Punjab sector, barring riverine
tracts, and extending till Rajasthan has been fenced, except for the border
areas in Gujarat, where construction is underway.
Nepal has been launching
pad of the ISI's anti-India operation since late Eighties, the time when
the ISI was exploring routes to push men and material in India.
The other possible and
convenient alternative used by the ISI is sea route via Gujarat and Maharashtra
coastlines.
