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While India and Pakistan are getting ready to move the peace process forward, the government has also initiated a back-channel dialogue with the jihadis in an attempt to get them to fall in line and not mount attacks in Indian-held Kashmir.
Insiders told TFT the regime is holding secret meetings with key jihadi leaders and persuading them take the January 6 Declaration as a development that affords a win-win situation for all sides. Perhaps because of this track-II with the jihadi groups the state-run media as well as jihadi leaders have toned down their rhetoric against India. Some jihadi leaders TFT spoke with said they were no more concerned with the solution of Kashmir under the UN resolutions but the issue must be resolved to the satisfaction of the Kashmiris. Efforts are also in progress to convince the jihadis on the Chenab formula that suggests the division of the culturally, geographically, historically and economically distinct Jammu and Ladakh regions along religious lines and the merger of all the Muslim-majority areas – Doda, Poonch, Rajouri and Kargil – of these two regions. Earlier, the jihadis have been rejecting the Chenab formula. The jihadi leadership is also being asked to adopt a new interpretation of jihad.
| I doubt that'll happen. Too much money in it. |
The jihadi leaders have also been asked to change the editorial policy of their publications. Before the 12th SAARC Summit, the website of the defunct Lashkar e-Taiba was posting highly provocative stories about India. That does not seem to be the case now. What is being published is reproduction of political news stories. During the 12th SAARC Summit, the establishment had sealed the LeT’s office located just in front of the Holiday Inn Hotel. The Indians had set up their media center at the Holiday Inn. Some Indian journalists walked to the LeT’s office to interview Hafiz Saeed! But they were disappointed to find it locked.
According to a section of the media, information was provided to India on the whereabouts of Hizbul Mujahideen’s Chief Operational Commander Ghulam Rasood Dar who has since been killed. ‘In line with the understanding with Brajesh Mishra, India received lists and intelligence co-operation from Pakistan as regards Kashmiri separatists and their bases. For this reason there has been a marked increase in the violence and success of the Indian forces in tracking down and killing Kashmiri fighters in Jammu and Kashmir,’ claims a portal. However, such reports have been denied by both the government of Pakistan and the Hizbul Mujahideen’s spokesman Salim Hashmi. Some political analysts are not ready to buy such denials and believe that in the days to come more jihadis are likely to meet the fate of Dar. Hizb disagrees with such assertions and calls them ‘baseless’.
It’s possible, there has long been a rumor than Benazir Bhutto gave India’s Prime Minister detailed lists of Khalistan separatists in the early 90’s, which lead to the eradication of that particular separatist movement by the security services. |