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Hizb ul-Mujahideen, LeT leaders stage hunger strike
 Eighteen top jihadi commanders are staging a hunger strike in Muzaffarabad against "the betrayal of the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir by President Pervez Musharraf," a Hizbul- Mujahideen spokesperson told The Hindu on Sunday. Mohammad Kalimullah, a Muzaffarabad-based spokesperson for the militant group, was responding to reports that at least eight leaders of Pakistanbased groups had been arrested, even as leaders of political organisations from both sides of the Line of Control met at a conference organised by the international science organisation, Pugwash.Organised by the United Jihad Council (UJC), a Pakistan-based platform for all major groups operating against India, the hunger strike marks the first instance where the jihadi leadership has staged a protest against Pakistan. Interestingly, Pakistanbased groups such as the Lashkar- e-Taiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), which were distant from the UJC, have also joined the protests. Hizb supreme commander Mohammad Yusuf Shah, who operates under the nom de guerreSyed Salahuddin, is leading the protests along with LeT's Mohammad Zaki-ur-Rahman, JeM's Abdul Rahman, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen's Maulana Farooq Kashmiri, the Al-Umar's Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar, the Jammu and Kashmir Islamic Front's Bilal Ahmad Beig and the Al-Badr's Bakht Zamin Khan. Kalimullah said the UJC commanders were demanding that General Musharraf reverse policies that "dishonoured a war in which 100,000 Kashmiris have sacrificed their lives." "Until he announces that Pakistan's moral and political support for the mujahideen in Kashmir will continue," he said, "our leaders will remain on hunger strike. We will not back down." The UJC leaders, the Hizb spokesperson said, had written to General Musharraf 10 days ago, warning that they would stage protests unless he reversed course on Jammu and Kashmir. However, no response was received. "Some people from the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Government have visited us to seek an end to the protests," Kalimullah said, "but we will negotiate only with the President of Pakistan himself." Newspapers in both India and Pakistan earlier reported that senior UJC members had been arrested because of the threat they posed to politicians from Jammu and Kashmir, who are attending the Pugwash conference. Kalimullah, though, said the reports were untrue. "We regard the people who have come from Jammu and Kashmir as traitors," he said, "but they are guests of Pakistan, and we do not intend to embarrass our hosts. Informed sources in Islamabad told The Hindu that while no formal arrest orders had been issued against the UJC leaders, their protest was being conducted in an Inter-Services Intelligence- run safe house in Muzaffarabad. They were not legally under detention, the sources said, but had been denied access to communication services. The Hizb website has not been updated since March 7. Military officials in New Delhi said there was no evidence of a Pakistan crackdown against terror groups. "Communications traffic between jihadi groups in Jammu and Kashmir and their control stations in Pakistan is at its usual levels," said a senior officer, adding that at least one fire engagement between Hizb terrorists and Indian forces had taken place since Saturday. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-03-14 |
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