The Afghan Dairy

The Afghan Dairy

WikiLeaks today released over 75,000 secret US military reports covering the war in Afghanistan.

The Afghan War Diary an extraordinary secret compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. The reports describe the majority of lethal military actions involving the United States military. They include the number of persons internally stated to be killed, wounded, or detained during each action, together with the precise geographical location of each event, and the military units involved and major weapon systems used.

The Afghan War Diary is the most significant archive about the reality of war to have ever been released during the course of a war. The deaths of tens of thousands is normally only a statistic but the archive reveals the locations and the key events behind each most of these deaths. We hope its release will lead to a comprehensive understanding of the war in Afghanistan and provide the raw ingredients necessary to change its course.

Most entries have been written by soldiers and intelligence officers listening to reports radioed in from front line deployments. However the reports also contain related information from Marines intelligence, US Embassies, and reports about corruption and development activity across Afghanistan.

Each report consists of the time and precise geographic location of an event that the US Army considers significant. It includes several additional standardized fields: The broad type of the event (combat, non-combat, propaganda, etc.); the category of the event as classified by US Forces, how many were detained, wounded, and killed from civilian, allied, host nation, and enemy forces; the name of the reporting unit and a number of other fields, the most significant of which is the summary – an English language description of the events that are covered in the report.

The Diary is available on the web and can be viewed in chronological order and by by over 100 categories assigned by the US Forces such as: “escalation of force”, “friendly-fire”, “development meeting”, etc. The reports can also be viewed by our “severity” measure-the total number of people killed, injured or detained. All incidents have been placed onto a map of Afghanistan and can be viewed on Google Earth limited to a particular window of time or place. In this way the unfolding of the last six years of war may be seen.

The material shows that cover-ups start on the ground. When reporting their own activities US Units are inclined to classify civilian kills as insurgent kills, downplay the number of people killed or otherwise make excuses for themselves. The reports, when made about other US Military units are more likely to be truthful, but still down play criticism. Conversely, when reporting on the actions of non-US ISAF forces the reports tend to be frank or critical and when reporting on the Taliban or other rebel groups, bad behavior is described in comprehensive detail. The behavior of the Afghan Army and Afghan authorities are also frequently described.

The reports come from US Army with the exception most Special Forces activities. The reports do not generally cover top-secret operations or European and other ISAF Forces operations. However when a combined operation involving regular Army units occurs, details of Army partners are often revealed. For example a number of bloody operations carried out by Task Force 373, a secret US Special Forces assassination unit, are exposed in the Diary — including a raid that lead to the death of seven children.

This archive shows the vast range of small tragedies that are almost never reported by the press but which account for the overwhelming majority of deaths and injuries.

We have delayed the release of some 15,000 reports from total archive as part of a harm minimization process demanded by our source. After further review, these reports will be released, with occasional redactions, and eventually, in full, as the security situation in Afghanistan permits.

Additional information from our media partners:

Der Spiegel: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,708314,00.html
The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/series/afghanistan-the-war-logs
The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/war-logs.ht
Sources : WIKILEAKS

Pakistan: “The Taliban’s Godfather”?

Pakistan: “The Taliban’s Godfather”? Documents Detail Years of Pakistani Support for Taliban, Extremists Covert Policy Linked Taliban, Kashmiri Militants, Pakistan’s Pashtun Troops Aid Encouraged Pro-Taliban Sympathies in Troubled Border Region National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 227 Edited by Barbara Elias   For more information contact: Barbara Elias – 202/994-7000 belias@gwu.edu

Unnamed and undated, this U.S. intelligence document confirms that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with both financial and military assistance.

Washington D.C.,  A collection of newly-declassified documents published today detail U.S. concern over Pakistan’s relationship with the Taliban during the seven-year period leading up to 9-11. This new release comes just days after Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, acknowledged that, “There is no doubt Afghan militants are supported from Pakistan soil.” While Musharraf admitted the Taliban were being sheltered in the lawless frontier border regions, the declassified U.S. documents released today clearly illustrate that the Taliban was directly funded, armed and advised by Islamabad itself. Obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, the documents reflect U.S. apprehension about Islamabad’s longstanding provision of direct aid and military support to the Taliban, including the use of Pakistani troops to train and fight alongside the Taliban inside Afghanistan. [Doc 17] The records released today represent the most complete and comprehensive collection of declassified documentation to date on Pakistan’s aid programs to the Taliban, illustrating Islamabad’s firm commitment to a Taliban victory in Afghanistan. [Doc 34]. These new documents also support and inform the findings of a recently-released CIA intelligence estimate characterizing Pakistan’s tribal areas as a safe haven for al-Qaeda terrorists, and provide new details about the close relationship between Islamabad and the Taliban in the years prior to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Declassified State Department cables and U.S. intelligence reports describe the use of Taliban terrorist training areas in Afghanistan by Pakistani-supported militants in Kashmir, as well as Pakistan’s covert effort to supply Pashtun troops from its tribal regions to the Taliban cause in Afghanistan-effectively forging and reinforcing Pashtun bonds across the border and consolidating the Taliban’s severe form of Islam throughout Pakistan’s frontier region. Also published today are documents linking Harakat ul-Ansar, a militant Kashmiri group funded directly by the government of Pakistan, [Doc 10] to terrorist training camps shared by Osama bin Laden in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. [Doc 16] Of particular concern was the potential for Islamabad-Taliban links to strengthen Taliban influence in Pakistan’s tribal regions along the border. A January 1997 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan observed that “for Pakistan, a Taliban-based government in Kabul would be as good as it can get in Afghanistan,” adding that worries that the “Taliban brand of Islam…might infect Pakistan,” was “apparently a problem for another day.” [Doc 20] Now ten years later, Islamabad seems to be acknowledging the domestic complications that the Taliban movement has created within Pakistan. A report produced by Pakistan’s Interior Ministry and obtained by the International Herald Tribune in June 2007 warned President Pervez Musharraf that Taliban-inspired Islamic militancy has spread throughout Pakistan’s tribal regions and could potentially threaten the rest of the country. The document is “an accurate description of the dagger pointed at the country’s heart,” according to one Pakistani official quoted in the article. “It’s tragic it’s taken so long to recognize it.” Islamabad denies that it ever provided military support to the Taliban , but the newly-released documents report that in the weeks following the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 1996, Pakistan’s intelligence agency was “supplying the Taliban forces with munitions, fuel, and food.” Pakistan’s Interservice Intelligence Directorate was “using a private sector transportation company to funnel supplies into Afghanistan and to the Taliban forces.” [Doc 15] Other documents also conclude that there has been an extensive and consistent history of “both military and financial assistance to the Taliban.” [Doc 8] The newly-released documents also shed light on the complexity of U.S. diplomacy with Pakistan as the State Department has struggled to maintain the U.S.-Pakistan alliance amid concerns over the rise of the Taliban regime. In one August 1997 cable, U.S. Ambassador Thomas W. Simons advises, “Our good relations with Pakistan associate us willy-nilly, so we need to be extremely careful about Pakistani proposals that draw us even closer,” adding that, “Pakistan is a party rather than just a mediator [in Afghanistan].” [Doc 24] In another 1997 cable, the Embassy asserts that “the best policy for the U.S. is to steer clear of direct involvement in the disputes between the two countries [Pakistan and Iran], and to continue to work for peace in Afghanistan.” [Doc 22] As to Pakistan’s end-game in supporting the Taliban, several documents suggest that in the interest of its own security, Pakistan would try to moderate some of the Taliban’s more extreme policies. [Doc 8] But the Taliban have a long history of resistance to external interests, and the actual extent of Pakistani influence over the Taliban during this period remains largely speculative. As the State Department commented in a cable from late-1995, “Although Pakistan has reportedly assured Tehran and Tashkent that it can control the Taliban, we remain unconvinced. Pakistan surely has some influence on the Taliban, but it falls short of being able to call the shots.” [Doc 7] Highlights August 1996: Pakistan Intelligence (ISID) “provides at least $30,000 – and possibly as much as $60,000 – per month” to the militant Kashmiri group Harakat ul-Ansar (HUA). Despite this aid, the group is reaching out to sponsors of international terrorism including Osama bin Laden for additional support, and may in the near future become a threat to Islamabad itself as well as U.S. interests. HUA contacts have hinted they “might undertake terrorist actions against civilian airliners.” [Doc 10] October 1996: A Canadian intelligence document released by the National Security Agency and originally classified Top Secret SI, Umbra comments on recent Taliban military successes noting that even Pakistan “must harbour some concern” regarding the Taliban’s impressive capture of Kabul, as such victory may diminish Pakistan’s influence over the movement and produce a Taliban regime in Kabul with strong links to Pakistan’s own Pashtuns. [Doc 14] October 1996: Although food supplies from Pakistan to the Taliban are conducted openly through Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISID, “the munitions convoys depart Pakistan late in the evening hours and are concealed to reveal their true contents.” [Doc 15] November 1996: Pakistan’s Pashtun-based “Frontier Corps elements are utilized in command and control; training; and when necessary – combat” alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan. [Doc 17] March 1998: Al-Qaeda and Pakistan government-funded Harakat ul-Ansar (HUA) have been sharing terrorist training camps in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan for years [Link Doc 16], and HUA has increasingly been moving ideologically closer to al-Qaeda. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad is growing increasingly concerned as Fazlur Rahman Khalil, a leader in Pakistan’s Harakat ul-Ansar has signed Osama bin Laden’s most recent fatwa promoting terrorist activities against U.S. interests. [Doc 26] September 1998 [Doc 31] and March 1999 [Doc 33]: The U.S. Department of State voices concern that Pakistan is not doing all it can to pressure the Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden. “Pakistan has not been responsive to our requests that it use its full influence on the Taliban surrender of Bin Ladin.” [Doc 33] September 2000: A cable cited in The 9/11 Commission Report notes that Pakistan’s aid to the Taliban has reached “unprecedented” levels, including recent reports that Islamabad has possibly allowed the Taliban to use territory in Pakistan for military operations. Furthermore the U.S. has “seen reports that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with materiel, fuel, funding, technical assistance and military advisors.” [Doc 34] Read the Documents Note: The following documents are in PDF format. You will need to download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.Document 1 – [Excised] to Ron McMullen (Afghanistan Desk), “Developments in Afghanistan,” December 5, 1994, Unknown Classification, 1 p. [Excised]Just as the Taliban are emerging as a major player in Afghanistan, a source [name excised] is troubled over Pakistan’s deep involvement in Afghan politics and Pakistan’s evident role in the Taliban’s recent military successes. His concerns include, “that the GOP [Government of Pakistan] ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] is deeply involved in the Taleban take over in Kandahar and Qalat,” and that Pakistan’s efforts to further its agenda in Afghanistan will sabotage U.N. peace efforts currently being led by Mahmoud Mesteri, Special Envoy for Afghanistan for the U.N. Secretary General. ________________________________________ Document 2 – Islama 00975 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Northern Afghan Strongman General Dostam Meets Taliban Representatives” January 29, 1995, Confidential, 2 pp. [Excised] Unnamed Pakistani officials meeting in Islamabad with General Abdul Rashid Dostum in December 1995 allegedly advise Dostum to “not worry about the Taliban, because Pakistan can take care of them.” Dostum reportedly agrees to Pakistani requests of cooperation with the Taliban in opening trade routes in Afghanistan for Pakistan. Dostum also meets with Taliban and Pakistani officials in Mazar-e-sharif in December. He is told by Taliban officials that they have “no territorial ambitions in the north and that Dostum should not oppose them.” Despite these promises, in May 1997 the Taliban would seize control of Mazar-e-sharif, taking Dostum’s properties and forcing him into exile. ________________________________________ Document 3 – State 243042 U.S. Department of State, Cable, “A/S Raphel’s October 4 Meeting with Assef All on Afghanistan,” October 13, 1995, Confidential, 7 pp. [Excised] Pakistan Foreign Minister Assef All tells U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Robin Raphel that “the main Pakistani message to the [Rabbani] opposition was to unite against the Kabul regime, but not to attack Kabul.” Furthermore, “All did not deny that Pakistan had significant contact with and gave some support to the Taliban. However, he said that little outside material support was necessary as the Tall ban [sic] had widespread support throughout the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan.” ________________________________________ Document 4 – Islama 09675 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Pakistan Afghan Policy: Anyone but Rabbani/Massoud – Even the Taliban,” October 18, 1995, Confidential, 6 pp. [Excised] Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Qazi Humayun tells American officials in October that “Pakistan now finds itself in the uncomfortable position of backing the Taliban.” Pakistan’s already hostile relations with the Kabul-based Rabbani government had recently grown dramatically worse as an angry mob destroyed Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul in September, injuring Ambassador Humayun and killing one other Pakistani official. The Rabbani government in Kabul claimed the mob was holding Pakistan responsible for the Taliban take over of Herat. Humayun doubted such an angry and well-organized mob could form in Kabul, a city with weak ties to Herat, without being backed by the Rabbani government. In a separate document U.N. officials independently agreed with Humayun, claiming “the loss of that city to the Taliban could not have provoked any spontaneous outbursts.” Although admitting to supporting the Taliban, Ambassador Humayun “opined that in many ways a Taliban government in Kabul would be even worse than the present one. Adding that a state under such ultra-conservative religious leadership would not make a good neighbor.” ________________________________________ Document 5 – USUN N 004283 USMission USUN (New York), Cable, “Letter of GOP Permrep to SYG on Afghanistan,” November 1, 1995, Unclassified, 3 pp. A reproduction of an October 25, 1995 letter from Pakistan’s U.N. representative to the U.N. Secretary General on Afghanistan, this cable is indicative of Pakistan’s public statements regarding its policy on Afghanistan. “We would like to once again reaffirm the continued neutral stance maintained by Pakistan in the Intra-Afghan rivalries. We continue to support the ongoing efforts of the United Nations and the Organization of the Islamic Conference for peace and conciliation in Afghanistan.” Pakistan maintains that it is neutral in Afghan politics. ________________________________________ Document 6 – Islama 11049 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: Russian Embassy Official Claims Iran Interfering more than Pakistan,” November 30, 1995, Confidential, 3 pp. According to an unnamed official at the Russian Embassy in Pakistan, the Pakistani government continues to provide the Taliban with “modest financial assistance,” logistics support, fuel, military training and chooses to ignore a “booming smuggling trade – mostly electronics,” that creates huge profits for the Taliban. In spite of this support from Pakistan, the source claims the Taliban’s funding mostly comes from Afghan traders and that aid from Pakistan to the Taliban is much more conservative than aid from Iran to the Rabbani government. _________________________________________ Document 7 – State 291940 U.S. Department of State, Cable, “Discussing Afghan Policy with the Pakistanis,” December 22, 1995, Confidential, 11 pp. [Excised] State Department officials in Washington D.C. question the wisdom of Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy of supporting any group opposed to the Kabul-based Rabbani government, including backing the Taliban, a group that remains “an unknown quantity to many of Afghanistan’s neighbors and therefore much more frightening than the status quo.” Providing astute advice to the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan, Washington advises “We see little likelihood the Taliban would be willing to transfer power to a transitional body acceptable to other Afghan powers. If so, then an unrepresentative Tajik [Rabbani] regime in Kabul will have been traded for an unrepresentative Pashtun [Taliban] authority. Although Pakistan has reportedly assured Tehran and Tashkent that it can control the Taliban, we remain unconvinced. Pakistan surely has some influence on the Taliban, but it falls short of being able to call the shots.” Although “Pakistan has followed a policy of supporting the Taliban and [is] attempting to forge a military and political alliance among the Kabul regime’s opponents,” the U.S. does not support a Taliban takeover and is seeking to remain a more neutral player. Unfortunately a strong U.S.-Pakistan relationship has led “Tehran, Moscow and New Delhi [to] assume incorrectly that the U.S. is party to Pakistan’s support for the Taliban and shares its antipathy for Rabbani and Masood…. Pakistani policy has undermined the credibility of our U.S. support of the U.N. special mission.” ___________________________________________ Document 8 – [Date and Title Unknown] Mori DocID: 800277 Secret, Noforn [Excised - Released by U.S. Central Command] Unnamed and undated, this U.S. intelligence document confirms that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with both financial and military assistance, but speculates that because “Pakistan fears a complete Taliban victory may incite irredentist aspirations within its own Pashtun population [Pakistan] will likely attempt to pressure the Taliban into moderating some of its policies.” Additionally, the document claims that Russia “has pledged to use military force should the Taliban push into northern Afghanistan,” and that India continues to supply weapons to anti-Taliban forces. ___________________________________________ Document 9 – Islama 01403 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: Taliban Official Says Divisions Within Movement Growing; Predicts “Fight with Iran,”" February 19, 1996, Confidential, 8 pp. [Excised] A Taliban official [name excised] discusses the Taliban perspective regarding Pakistani aid to their cause. Claiming Pakistan has only given the Taliban ammunition once, “at the very beginning of the movement in 1994,” the official explains that due to recent military successes resulting in the seizure of materials, including fuel and ammunition, the Taliban does not need direct supplies from the Pakistanis. He provided one important insight however, commenting that Pakistan “used Afghan traders to channel money to the Taliban, avoiding wherever possible a direct link with the movement.” Pakistan has previously denied providing the Taliban with large sums of aid, instead asserting the movement remained primarily supported by Afghan traders. This Taliban official implies that Afghan traders supporting the Taliban may actually only be serving as a conduit for Pakistani government funding. ___________________________________________ Document 10 – DI TR 96-008 Central Intelligence Agency, “Harakat ul-Ansar: Increasing Threat to Western and Pakistani Interests,” August 1996, Secret, 4 pp. [Excised] Possibly in an effort to avoid being placed on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, Pakistan is withdrawing some of its monetary support to Harakat ul-Ansar (HUA), which the CIA describes as “as Islamic extremist organization that Pakistan supports in its proxy war against Indian forces in Kashmir.” The CIA is concerned over HUA’s recent increase in its use of terrorist tactics against western targets and civilians and its efforts to reach out to sponsors of international terrorism such as Osama bin Laden and Mu’ammar Qadhafi, who “may further encourage the group to attack US interests.” ISID (Pakistan’s Inter-services Intelligence Directorate) “provides at least $30,000 – and possibly as much as $60,000 – per month to the HUA,” but “antigovernment sentiment among HUA leaders is already strong and could grow further” if Islamabad further isolates the group by decreasing support. HUA’s recent shift from its limited focus on India to include western targets may indicate the group will also start to aim at Islamabad as “a senior HUA leader has publicly advocated an Afghan-style change of government in Pakistan that would remove the political, bureaucratic, and military hierarchies.” One further interesting note in the document is that “HUA contacts of Embassy New Delhi have hinted that they might undertake terrorist actions against civilian airliners.” ____________________________________________ Document 11 – NID 96-0229CX National Intelligence Daily, Central Intelligence Agency, Monday, September 30, 1996, Top Secret, 5 pp. [Excised] Four days after the Taliban takeover of Kabul, the CIA comments on the Taliban’s mixed policies regarding terrorist organizations operating in Taliban-controlled territory, noting that the “Taliban has tolerated some terrorist groups while shutting down others.” “Taliban has closed militant training camps associated with Prime Minister Hikmatyar, factional leader Sayyaf, and Pakistan’s Jamaat-i-Islami. Taliban has not closed other camps associated with Usama bin Ladin, Hizbi Islami (Khalis), Paskistan’s Jamiat-Ulema-i-Islam, and Harakat ul-Ansar, including the HUA’s main training camp in Khowst.” ____________________________________________ Document 12 – Peshaw 00916 U.S. Consulate (Peshawar), Cable, “Afghan-Pak Border Relations at Torkham Tense” October 2, 1996, Confidential, 6 pp. [Excised] A “reliable contact of the consulate” [name excised] witnessed “30-35 sealed ISI trucks and 15-20 fuel tankers” waiting to cross the Afghanistan-Pakistan border at Torkham. “Between afternoon tea with the officers in charge of the ‘ISI convoy’ and recognizing the type of vehicle license plate numbers on the convoy vehicles, [name excised] was very certain of the convoy’s affiliation.” The cable does not specify what was contained in the ISI trucks or where after entering Afghanistan the convoy was heading. ___________________________________________ Document 13 – Islama 08637 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: Foreign Secretary Mulls over Afghanistan,” October 10, 1996, Confidential, 2 pp. Pakistan Foreign Secretary Najamuddin Shaikh insists that in spite of the rumors, Pakistani aid to the Taliban is not increasing and that Pakistan continues to push the Taliban to cooperate with other factions in Afghanistan rather than unilaterally conquer the country. U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Thomas W. Simons comments that the Foreign Secretary “went to great pains to reassure us that Pakistan is not throwing its chips in with the Taliban. In any case, [the U.S.] will continue to urge Pakistan to avoid the temptation of siding with the Taliban, but instead work to persuade the Taliban that a durable peace is possible only through genuine national reconciliation involving all Afghanistan’s ethnic and religious groups.” ___________________________________________ Document 14 Privy Council Office (PCO) [Ottawa, Canada] [Released by the U.S. National Security Agency], “IAC Intelligence Assessment – IA 7/96,” “Afghanistan: Taliban’s Challenges, Regional Concerns, October 18, 1996,” Top Secret – SI, Umbra, 12pp. [Excised] A Canadian intelligence document released by the National Security Agency summarizes the situation in Afghanistan a month after the Taliban takeover of Kabul and accurately projects that the Taliban’s recent acquisition of the capital “could now more starkly divide [Afghanistan] into two distinct parts – Pakistan-supported Pushtun/Taliban forces in control of Kabul and most of the country, and Tajik/Uzbek/Shia forces of Dostam, Masood, and the Hezb-i-Wahdat’s Karim Khalili in the Panjshir Valley and north.” Pakistan is isolated in its support of the Taliban advance, as “there is clear signs that, aside from Pakistan, Afghanistan’s near neighbors – Russia, Iran, India, and the Central Asian countries – harbour real concerns over the regional impact of the Taliban’s accession to power.” However, even Pakistan “must harbour some concern” regarding the Taliban’s impressive capture of Kabul, as it may diminish Pakistan’s influence over the movement and may over time produce a Taliban regime in Kabul with strong links to Pakistan’s own Pashtuns, perhaps eventually calling “for creation of a ‘greater Pushtun nation.” To India’s dismay, Kashmiri militants will likely be encouraged by the Taliban’s recent successes, as many “see their struggle as much in a religious as seccessionist [sic] perspective.” The Top Secret SI, Umbra classification designates the information in the document originating from highly-sensitive communications intelligence. UMBRA is the highest-level compartment of Special Intelligence (SI). For more information see previous Archive posting, “The National Security Agency Declassified”. ___________________________________________ Document 15 From [Excised] to DIA Washington D.C. [Excised], Cable “[Excised]/Pakistan Interservice Intelligence/ Pakistan (PK) Directorate Supplying the Taliban Forces,” October 22, 1996, Secret, 1 p. [Excised] This U.S. Intelligence Information Report concludes that the ISI is much more involved with the Taliban than Pakistani officials have been telling U.S. diplomats. U.S. intelligence indicates that the ISI “is supplying the Taliban forces with munitions, fuel, and food. The Pakistan Interservice Intelligence Directorate is using a private sector transportation company to funnel supplies into Afghanistan and to the Taliban forces.” Although food supplies from Pakistan to the Taliban are conducted openly, “the munitions convoys depart Pakistan late in the evening hours and are concealed to reveal their true contents.” The document does not comment on whether Pakistani officials have been concealing this information from the U.S. or if the ISI, Pakistani intelligence, has been keeping its support of the Taliban hidden from other Pakistani government offices, in effect causing Pakistani diplomats to pass along false information to the U.S. ___________________________________________ Document 16 – Islama 001054 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Pakistan Counterterrorism: Ambassador’s Meeting with [Excised] on State Sponsor Designation,” February 6, 1997, Secret, 1 p. [Excised] The U.S. Embassy confronts an unnamed Pakistani official on the unsettling triangle possibly developing between Harakat ul-Ansar (HUA), Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Both bin Laden and the HUA have been granted sanctuary in Afghanistan and are linked with terrorist training camps in Khost, near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. The U.S. fears there could be “a linkup between HUA, an organization Pakistan supported and bin Laden; it could have very serious consequences.” The Pakistani official replied that the “HUA had been under very strong scrutiny for “more than a year,” and there had been “positive progress” in monitoring and controlling its activities. The HUA, he maintained, was under “enough control” that its activities would not create problems for Pakistan. Similarly he continued, “we won’t allow our territory to be used by Osama bin Laden for such activities.”" According to the official, Islamabad is in control and the ISID (Inter-services Intelligence Directorate) does not operate in Afghanistan on a separate agenda that is independent of Islamabad’s policies. ___________________________________________ Document 17 From [Excised] to DIA Washington D.C., “IIR [Excised] Pakistan Involvement in Afghanistan,” November 7, 1996, Confidential, 2 pp. [Excised] Similar to the October 22, 1996 Intelligence Information Report (IIR), this IIR reiterates how “Pakistan’s ISI is heavily involved in Afghanistan,” but also details different roles various ISI officers play in Afghanistan. Stating that Pakistan uses sizable numbers of its Pashtun-based Frontier Corps in Taliban-run operations in Afghanistan, the document clarifies that, “these Frontier Corps elements are utilized in command and control; training; and when necessary – combat. Elements of Pakistan’s regular army force are not used because the army is predominantly Punjabi, who have different features as compared to the Pashtun and other Afghan tribes.” According to the document, Pakistan’s Frontier Corps provide some of the combat training in Kandahar or Herat provided to Pakistani madrassa students that come to Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban. The parents of these students apparently know nothing regarding their child’s military involvement with the Taliban “until their bodies are brought back to Pakistan.” ___________________________________________ Document 18 – Islama 09517 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad) Cable, “Afghanistan: Taliban Deny They Are Sheltering HUA Militants, Usama bin Laden,” November 12, 1996, Confidential, 7pp. U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Thomas W. Simons Jr. and the Taliban’s “Acting Foreign Minister,” Mullah Ghaus discuss the presence of Osama bin Laden and Harakat ul-Ansar (HUA), Kashmiri-based anti-India militants training in Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan. Responding to media reports that HUA militants are training in “two camps vacated by “Afghan Arab” militants in Afghanistan’s Paktia (Khost) province near the Afghan-Pakistan border, and intelligence reports that bin Laden “is in or near the Taliban-controlled city of Jalalabad, in Nangarhar province,” Ambassador Simons expresses strong concern that the Taliban seemingly are developing policies to shelter terrorists. Ghaus flatly denies that HUA militants or bin Laden are in Taliban territory, “There are no foreigners in Khost province – only Taliban,” and “bin Laden was invited to Afghanistan by (Hezb-I-Islami Leader and ousted Prime Minister) Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar left Kabul when we took it over. Maybe bin Laden went with him,” “I assure you that [bin Laden] is not in areas controlled by Taliban administration. This is an objective of our movement.” Ghaus insinuates that the Taliban would be more willing to do something about terrorist entities operating in Afghanistan if the U.S. provided them with funding. According to The 9/11 Commission Report (pp. 63-65) when bin Laden first returned to Afghanistan in May 1996 he maintained ties to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as well as other non-Taliban and anti-Taliban political entities. However by September 1996 when Jalalabad and Kabul had both fallen to the Taliban, bin Laden had solidified his ties to the Taliban and was operating in Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan. Furthermore the 9/11 Commission Report observes that, “it is unlikely that Bin Laden could have returned to Afghanistan had Pakistan disapproved. The Pakistani military intelligence service probably had advance knowledge of his coming, and its officers may have facilitated his travel… Pakistani intelligence officers reportedly introduced bin Laden to Taliban leaders in Kandahar, their main base of power, to aid his reassertion of control over camps near Khowst, out of an apparent hope that he would now expand the camps and make them available for training Kashmiri militants.” ___________________________________________ Document 19 – Islama 009994 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad) Cable, “Afghanistan: British Journalist Visits Site of Training Camps; HUA Activity Alleged,” November 26, 1996, Confidential, 4pp. An unnamed British journalist reports to the U.S. Embassy that her visit to two terrorist training camps in Paktia province, near the Afghan-Pakistan border on November 14, 1996 revealed that both camps appear occupied, and her “Taliban sources” advise that “one of the camps is occupied by Harakat-ul-Ansar (HUA) militants,” the Pakistan-based Kashmiri terrorist organization. Whether or not HUA’s presence in training camps in Afghanistan is known or supported by Islamabad or Pakistani intelligence is not commented on in the document. The reporter’s sources inform her that the other camp is occupied by “assorted foreigners, including Chechens, Bosnian Muslims, as well as Sudanese and other Arabs.” ____________________________________________ Document 20 – Islama 00436 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad) Cable, “Scenesetter for Your Visit to Islamabad: Afghan Angle,” January 16, 1997, Confidential, 12pp. [Excised] A background document for an upcoming visit of Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Robin Raphel, the cable summarizes the political and military state of affairs in Afghanistan. Pages 7-9 address Afghan-Pakistan relations, concisely observing that “for Pakistan, a Taliban-based government in Kabul would be as good as it can get in Afghanistan.” As Pashtuns opposed to India, the Taliban permit Harakat ul-Ansar (HUA) the Kashmir-based militant anti-Indian group to use Taliban-controlled military training camps in Khost near the Afghan-Pakistan border. The document observes that Islamabad probably understands that supporting the Taliban increases the strength of extremist Muslim political movements within Pakistan, but “probably believes the Taliban will eventually become more moderate,” and considers the overall extremist issue “a problem for another day.” Regarding support, “Pakistani aid to the Taliban is more significant and probably less malign than most imagine.” Military aid is probably moderate, “consistent with the Pakistani military’s budget realities,” and that military advice “may be there, but is probably not all that significant since the Taliban do quite well on their own.” On the other hand, “Pakistani political and diplomatic support is certainly significant,” as sources have informed the U.S. Embassy that Islamabad plays an “overbearing role in planning and even executing Taliban political and diplomatic initiatives.” Pakistan also grants the “Taliban free access to the Pakistani market to buy whatever they want, including subsidized wheat flour. This is an enormous advantage over the other factions” fighting for political control in Afghanistan. ___________________________________________ Document 21 – Islama 01873 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad) Cable, “Official Informal for SA Assistant Secretary Robin Raphel and SA/PAB,” March 10, 1997, Confidential, 13pp. [Excised] Updating Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Robin Raphel on the situation in Afghanistan, the Embassy advises that fighting is more than likely to continue as Iran and Russia continue to supply Ahmed Shah Massoud in the north, while “Pakistan appears to be reviewing its Afghan policy, but important agencies, such as ISID [Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate], still appear committed to and even supportive of a Taliban victory. The Taliban continue to protect Osama bin Laden, although “some high-level Taliban say they would send him to Saudi Arabia if it would accept him.” Furthermore, the Taliban “appear to have worked out some sort of deal – perhaps brokered by the ISID – that allows Harakat-ul-Ansar, the Kashmiri militant group, to use camps in Khost, and they have not followed through on a promise to allow a U.S. team to visit these camps.” The Embassy recommends a policy of “limited engagement to try to “moderate and modernize” the Taliban.” Full engagement would be against American interests as it would associate Washington with a “movement we find repugnant,” however a failure to engage the Taliban at all would further isolate Afghanistan. ___________________________________________ Document 22 – Islama 02001 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan and Sectarian Violence Contribute to a Souring of Pakistan’s Relations with Iran,” March 13, 1997, Confidential, 16 pp. [Excised] Discussing the detrimental impact of Pakistan’s support for the Taliban movement in Afghanistan on Pakistan’s relationship with Iran, American officials conclude “the best policy for the U.S. is to steer clear of direct involvement in the disputes between the two countries [Pakistan and Iran], and to continue to work for peace in Afghanistan.” Providing a history of strained relations between the nations over Afghanistan, the document comments that “Pakistan has consistently denied that it is the Taliban’s godfather, although GOP [Government of Pakistan] officials in private sometimes acknowledge that they have close links and are providing them with foodstuffs and fuel.” ___________________________________________ Document 23 – Islama 06882 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: Pakistanis to Regulate Wheat and Fuel Trade to Gain Leverage Over Taliban,” August 13, 1997, Confidential, 9 pp. [Excised] Partially as an effort to gain more leverage over the Taliban, but also as a means to restrain drug trafficking and increase revenue, Pakistan has placed stricter regulations on wheat and fuel trade with Afghanistan and plan to demand hard currency in exchange for wheat instead of accepting “powder,” or drug payments. Although Pakistani officials claim that these new regulations are an effort to exert greater influence the Taliban, Pakistan continues to unilaterally back the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. U.S. officials inquiring into the selling of Pakistani wheat in areas of Afghanistan not controlled by the Taliban are told, “the GOP [Government of Pakistan] is only dealing with the Taliban,” and that Pakistan’s “objective is not political, but economic and narcotics-related.” Note: the document refers to regulating wheat and POL trade. POL stands for Petroleum, Oil and Lubricants. ___________________________________________ Document 24 – Islama 007343 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: [Excised] Briefs Ambassador on his Activities. Pleads for Greater Activism by U.N.” August 27, 1997, Confidential, 5 pp. [Excised] (Previously released and included in previous Archive posting, “The Taliban File Part III”, March 19, 2004.) The source for this information remains excised throughout the document, but describes efforts to encourage multi-ethnic negotiations in Afghanistan that would work towards establishing a durable peace in the region. Pakistan urges the U.S. to back the “vacant seat policy,” regarding Afghan representation at the U.N., and Taliban representatives Mullah Hassan and Mullah Jalil promise the source that if U.N. Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi returns to Afghanistan, Mullah Omar will meet with him, but due to “the schedule” he was not able to meet with Brahimi during his most recent trip. According to the source, the Massoud-led anti-Taliban alliance is weak and “if the Taliban would simply cease all military activity, the alliance would fall apart.” He later adds that the Taliban will successfully take over the country, but “when faced with the challenge of governing the entire country, [the Taliban] will yield to technocrats.” U.S. Ambassador Thomas W. Simons admits that “Pakistan has a ‘privileged association’ with the Taliban, but not control over them; Iran, and perhaps Uzbekistan and Russia have similar privileged associations with other parties to the conflict. But where does that lead us in terms of practical steps?” The Ambassador advises, “Our good relations with Pakistan associate us willy-nilly, so we need to be extremely careful about Pakistani proposals that draw us even closer. For, at the second level, Pakistan is a party rather than just a mediator.” Regarding Pakistani aid to the Taliban, the Ambassador shows little interest in discussing the accuracy of the 20 million rupee estimate given by the ISI, responding that such a figure “did not include access to Pak wheat and POL [Petroleum, Oil and Lubricants], or the trucks and busses full of adolescent mujahid crossing the frontier shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and going into the line with a day or two of training.” ___________________________________________ Document 25 – United Nations Outgoing Code Cable – Special Mission U.N.SMA (U.N. Special Mission to Afghanistan), “Present Pakistani Initiatives in Afghanistan” October 30, 1997, [Classification Unknown], 3 pp. (Previously released and included in previous Archive posting, “The Taliban File Part III”, March 19, 2004.) Head of U.N. special mission to Afghanistan (U.N.SMA) Norbert Holl and Pakistan’s special envoy on Afghanistan, Iftikhar Murshid, discuss a meeting between Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Mullah Rabbani, a senior-ranking Taliban official. The Prime Minister gets Rabbani to agree to a collective meeting of the various warring factions in Afghanistan, and declares it a breakthrough as Rabbani didn’t insist on addressing the POW issue before meeting. Murshid is less optimistic, as “the POW issue had always come up in the final instance and that therefore omitting it at this time should not be overestimated.” Pakistan is pressuring the U.S. and U.N. to vacate the anti-Taliban alliance from Afghanistan’s U.N. seat. Holl feels Pakistan would never agree to an oil embargo against Afghanistan, even though such an embargo is a proposed step intended to compel cooperation among the Afghan factions, something Pakistan claims to support. Although the Taliban’s supplies of POL, (Petroleum, Oil and Lubricant supplies) are subsidized by Saudi Arabia, Holl believes “Pakistan would never agree to impede the POL transit.” Rather than isolate the Taliban in order to endorse compromise, “GOP [Government of Pakistan] would sign a new contract with the Taliban today, 30 October, for the supply of 600,000 tons of wheat.” ___________________________________________ Document 26 – Islama 01805 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: [Excised] Describes Pakistan’s Current Thinking” March 9, 1998, Confidential, 9 pp. [Excised] (Previously released and included in previous Archive posting, “The Taliban File Part III”, March 19, 2004.) In a March 9, 1998 meeting between the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad’s Deputy Chief of Mission Alan Eastham and a source who appears to be Pakistan Foreign Ministry official Iftikhar Murshed, the officials review several Afghan-related issues including U.S. concerns over Osama bin Laden’s recent fatwa. The U.S. embassy is concerned over Pakistan’s connection to bin Laden’s statement, as the fatwa was signed by Fazlur Rahman Khalil, a leader in Pakistan’s Harakat ul-Ansar (HUA). The source claims Iran is a great influence in northern Afghanistan, while “downplaying the Pakistani leverage on the Taliban.” He maintained that the Taliban has “more than enough ammunition,” and “no arms and ammunition from the Pakistani government have gone over the border in the past three or four months.” Even though the source claims “Pakistan has ‘little leverage over the Taliban,’” he provides the State Department with some of its first details on how “Pakistan was in the business of providing arms-related supplies to the Taliban… [and] could refuse to provide the Taliban fuel since the Taliban load up their planes in Pakistan.” Pakistan provides support to the Taliban, but has little, if any control over their actions. “If Pakistan held up wheat consignments to the Taliban, the Taliban would say ‘what the hell! We can smuggle enough wheat into Afghanistan to feed ourselves.’” According to the source, Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan can be controlled by Pakistan if the Pakistani government chooses to do so, as “Pakistan, in the past, has shown that it can control this border. In fact, there are only just over 40 “jeepable” border crossing points. These points could be monitored if the Baluchistan and the North-West frontier provincial governments got serious about the issue of smuggling.” ___________________________________________ Document 27 – Islama 004546 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad) Cable, “Afghanistan: [Excised] Criticizes GOP’s Afghan Policy; Says It Is Letting Policy Drift,” June 16, 1998, Confidential, 2 pp (Previously released and included in previous Archive posting, “The Taliban File Part III”, March 19, 2004.) A Pakistan government source who is “a longtime and bitter political opponent of [Pakistani Prime Minister] Nawaz Sharif” laments on the lack of a firm “sense of direction” in Pakistan’s Afghan policy and the failure of the Pakistani government to take serious efforts to control its border with Afghanistan. According to the source, who appears to be former Interior Minister Nasrullah Babar, “the Bhutto government’s efforts in regard to Afghanistan could be criticized on many fronts, but “at least the policy was coherent – we tried to build the Taliban up and then tried to push them to negotiations (in October 1996) after they captured Kabul.” Under the “Nawaz Sharif government, there has never been a sustained effort to bring the factions to the bargaining table.” The source “personally supported the deployment of ISI officers operating out of the Pakistani Embassy in Kabul, and from Herat, Kandahar, and the Jalalabad consulates.” By operating out of these diplomatic posts, the government of Pakistan could better monitor the activities of the ISI in Afghanistan. He suggests that ties between Pakistani and Afghan Pashtuns are strengthening, which may pose a threat to the continued sovereignty of Afghan government in Kabul. Although the source is biased against Nawaz Sharif the document notes that his points nevertheless “reverberate because they have been underscored by more neutral observers who agree that the present government is letting its Afghanistan policy drift. The result is confusion as evidenced by the GOP’s [Government of Pakistan's] declaratory policy, which is in favor of negotiations, and a countervailing policy of ISI support for the Taliban.” ___________________________________________ Document 28 – Islama 05010 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Bad News on Pak Afghan Policy: GOP Support for the Taliban Appears to be Getting Stronger” July 1, 1998, Confidential, 2 pp. [Excised] (Previously released and included in previous Archive posting, “The Taliban File Part III”, March 19, 2004.) According to a variety of Pakistani officials and journalists, including Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan has “regressed to a point where it is as hard-line as ever in favor of the Taliban.” Pakistani government officials have given up “the pretense of supporting the U.N. effort,” and have become unabashedly pro-Taliban. The Pakistani government, including the Prime Minister, recently approved six million dollars in additional aid to the Taliban over the next six months. The U.S. considers the additional funding a regressive step as the “trend-line had generally been in a more positive direction.” Rashid reports that he heard comments from Pakistani officials arguing that “the Taliban are capable of taking over all of Afghanistan; their regime is qualitively (sic) better for the Afghan people than that of their opponents; [and] the outside world should try to understand the Taliban mind-set before condemning them on such issues as human rights etc..” Such opinions are echoed by another Pakistani source whose name is excised in the document, “If it were not for the war, the Taliban would be making progress on women’s issues. They would be making such progress now, but the U.N. has failed to help them, despite Taliban requests.” The same source also commends the Taliban for bringing stability to Afghanistan while explaining how “the Northern Alliance is totally unreliable. They refuse to keep their word.” The cable speculates the spike in pro-Taliban Pakistani feeling can be attributed to the political fallout of recent nuclear testing and increased regional tension. These developments have increased Pakistan’s need for a pro-Pakistan, anti-India regime in Kabul. ___________________________________________ Document 29 – Islama 05535 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “In Bilateral Focussed (sic) on Afghanistan, GOP Reviews Pak/Iran Effort; A/S Inderfurth Expresses U.S. Concerns About the Taliban” July 23, 1998, Confidential, 16 pp. [Excised] U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Karl Inderfurth meeting with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shamshad Ahmed discusses joint Pakistan/Iran talks on the peace effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan. During the meeting, “Ahmed denied that the GOP [Government of Pakistan] is providing anything but “oil and wheat” to the Taliban. In addition, he asserted that the type of assistance that was given by Pakistan to the Taliban was also provided [to] the northern factions.” ___________________________________________ Document 30 – Islama 005964 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: Evidence Not There to Prove Assertions that Pak Troops Have Been Deployed to Assist Taliban in the North,” August 6, 1998, Confidential, 5 pp. [Excised] There is no evidence to support claims that recent Taliban military victories are the result Pakistani troop participation in Taliban battles. Members of the Northern Alliance told the U.S. Embassy that it “was inconceivable that the Taliban could ‘do it all on their own,’” but U.S. efforts to substantiate these claims failed to produce supporting evidence. Although the participation of large numbers of Pakistani troops seems unlikely, it remains possible that Pakistani military advisors were involved in training Taliban fighters. Taliban ranks furthermore continue to be filled with Pakistani nationals (an estimated 20-40 percent of Taliban soldiers are Pakistani according to the document), which further solidifies Pakistan-Taliban relations, even though this does not indicate not outward or official Pakistani government support. Osama bin Laden is mentioned as supporting pro-Taliban Arab fighters from an office in Herat. ___________________________________________ Document 31 – Islama 07242 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: Tensions Reportedly Mount Within Taliban as Ties With Saudi Arabia Deteriorate Over Bin Ladin,” September 28, 1998, Secret, 8 pp. [Excised] Primarily discussing the Taliban’s firm opposition to surrender Osama bin Laden and Saudi Arabia’s recently failed attempts to negotiate bin Laden’s expulsion from Afghanistan, the document concludes with the following thoughts from U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan William Milam, “If Pakistan – the Taliban’s closest international supporter – throws in its weight behind Saudi Arabia on the bin Laden issue, the pressure on the Taliban may become unbearable. As of this time, Pakistan has not yet made its position clear.” ___________________________________________ Document 32 – Islama 01320 U.S. Embassy (Islamabad), Cable, “Afghanistan: Taliban Seem to Have Less Funds and Supplies This Year, But the Problem Does Not Appear to be that Acute,” February 17, 1999, Confidential, 2 pp. [Excised] Suffering under sanctions imposed in response to nuclear weapons testing in May 1998, Pakistan has reduced aid to the Taliban, although sources indicate Pakistan “continued to write a check worth a million or so dollars every couple of months.” This decrease in support is not a political move by Pakistan, but appears to be a purely budgetary decision. Unlike certain other documents on Pakistan aid to the Taliban, this cable reports that there is little evidence of direct military aid from Pakistan to the Taliban, as Pakistan only admits to sending flour and fuel. Additionally Saudi Arabia, concerned over the Taliban’s sheltering of Osama bin Laden, has been successful in reducing private Saudi donations flowing into Afghanistan. However the Taliban, through their access to drug trafficking, income from transit taxes, and continued, although limited support from Pakistan as well as the “capture of a fair amount of equipment during their successful late 1998 military campaign,” does not seem to be in any immediate trouble from the recent decrease in funding from Pakistan. The cable also mentions that Osama “bin Ladin has also provided the Taliban with some money, but probably not enough to make a significant difference in their case balance.” The Taliban’s main opponent, Ahmed Shah Masoud continues to be very well funded, from Iranian, Russian, Uzbek and Tajik sources and although the Taliban show no immediate sign of weakening from the drop in funding, U.S. Ambassador Milam notes that “slight variations in funding and supplies can mean the difference between victory and defeat” in such small-scale, low-tech conflicts such as the war between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban. __________________________________________ Document 33 Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Karl F. Inderfurth to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, “Pushing for Peace in Afghanistan,” March 25, 1999 [approx], Secret, 6pp. Despite diplomatic approaches, continued fighting in Afghanistan is likely as Pakistan continues to provide aid to the Taliban in their quest for complete control of Afghanistan, while Iran and Russia support Ahmad Shah Massoud and the Northern Alliance. Pakistan’s alliance with the Taliban is stronger than Iran or Russia with Masoud as “Iran and Russia are more likely to end diplomatic and covert support to Masood than Pakistan would be to end its support to the Taliban.” The document portrays a slightly stronger Pakistan-Taliban alliance than previous declassified State Department materials. Pakistan not only provides aid to the Taliban, but “will continue to seek and support a Taliban military victory.” Pakistan is an isolated country in international dealings on Afghanistan. The UN’s informal “Six-Plus-Two” group overseeing efforts to diffuse the conflict in Afghanistan includes the six nations with borders along Afghanistan – China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – as well as the two mediating powers Russia and the U.S., but according to the document may as well be changed to an “”Eight Minus One” (Pakistan) process, emphasizing the isolation of Pakistan.” Furthermore, “Pakistan has not been responsive to [American] requests that it use its full influence on the Taliban surrender of Bin Ladin.” The Department believes “that Pakistan can do more, including cutting POL supplies that mostly flow into Afghanistan from Pakistan.” “Continued Pakistani resistance and/or duplicity” may lead the U.S. to push for U.N. Security Council involvement, or for the inclusion of India in the “Six-Plus-Two” negotiations. Current U.S. policy towards Afghanistan consists of supporting diplomatic approaches such as “Six-Plus-Two,” and doing what is possible to moderate the behavior of the Taliban. “At the end of the day, we may have to consider the Taliban to be an intrinsic enemy of the U.S. and a new international pariah state. We are not there yet and we do not want to be there. We will continue our policy of trying to mitigate Taliban behavior where and when its ill advised policies cross our path.” ___________________________________________ Document 34 – State 185645 U.S. Department of State, Cable, “Pakistan Support for Taliban,” Sept. 26, 2000, Secret, 4pp. [Excised] Responding to reports that Islamabad may be allowing the Taliban to use territory in Pakistan for military operations, in September 2000 an alarmed U.S. Department of State observes that “while Pakistani support for the Taliban has been long-standing, the magnitude of recent support is unprecedented.” In response Washington orders the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad to immediately confront Pakistani officials on the issue and to advise Islamabad that the U.S. has “seen reports that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with materiel, fuel, funding, technical assistance and military advisors. [The Department] also understand[s] that large numbers of Pakistani nationals have recently moved into Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban, apparently with the tacit acquiescence of the Pakistani government.” Additional reports indicate that direct Pakistani involvement in Taliban military operations has increased. In an effort to promote a cease-fire and discourage Pakistan from continuing its efforts to support a military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan by arming the Taliban, Washington candidly states that the U.S. will not accept a Taliban military victory in Afghanistan, but clarifies that the U.S. is “not divorced from reality,” recognizing that a solution must be found through a broad-based peace process which includes all relevant Afghan political factions, including the Taliban. The U.S. does not “believe that Masood is the answer.” Note: This document is cited in The 9/11 Commission Report, Chapter 6, Footnote 68 as “DOS cable, State 185645, “Concern that Pakistan is Stepping up Support to Taliban’s Military Campaign in Afghanistan,” Sept. 26, 2000.” __________________________________________ Document 35 Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Carl W. Ford, Jr. to Secretary of State Colin Powell, “Pakistan – Poll Shows Strong and Growing Public Support for Taleban,” November 7, 2001, Unclassified, 3pp [Excised] A poll compiled by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research after September 11, 2001, but before the commencement of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, shows the Pakistani public has become more pro-Taliban than it was before the September 11 attacks. As the Musharraf government begins to implement policies distancing Pakistan from its longstanding alliance with the Taliban, the Pakistani public is becoming more sympathetic to the Taliban.

Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir, Tashkent & The Shimla Agreement

Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir, Tashkent & The Shimla Agreement

Pakistan’s espousal of the right to self-determination has been conditional and circumscribed. It is demanded of the part of Kashmir which escaped its occupation but not its depredations The right of self-determination is not recognized for Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK).

The Azad Jammu and Kashmir Interim Constitution Act 1974 obliges all leaders from the President down and all legislators to swear loyalty to the cause of accession of the state of Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan.” Islam is the State religion (Article 3). The President and Prime Minister must be Muslim. The right of freedom of association is restricted. Article 7(2) says: No person or political party in Azad Jammu and Kashmir shall be permitted to propagate against or take part in activities prejudicial or detrimental to the ideology of the State’s accession to Pakistan.

The Constitution was imposed on POK by the former Prime Minister Z.A. Bhutto. Pakistan conveniently ignored the fact that it is only in temporary charge of those areas under its occupation. In its view it is the rest of the State which is disputed territory not that part which it had grabbed.

Pakistan resents the expression Pakistan-occupied Kashmir but freely talks of Indian-occupied Kashmir. Taking the UN resolutions by which Pakistan .swears it would be clear that while the legality of the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India was consistently and explicitly accepted in those resolutions the expression Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is derived from these very documents.

Let us take a close look at what the Security Council did. On January 20, 1948 the Security Council set up a three-member Commission. On April 21 1948 the Council not only expanded its membership to five but laid down the details of a plebiscitary solution. A Plebiscite Administrator was to be nominated by the UN Secretary General. Para 10(b) said: The Plebiscite Administrator acting as an officer of the State of Jammu and Kashmir should have authority to nominate his assistants …. and to draft regulations governing the plebiscite. Such nominees should be formally appointed and such draft resolutions should be formally promulgated by the State of Jammu and Kashmir.”

This is clear recognition of the legality of Kashmir’s accession to India, India’s external .sovereignty over the State and the legal authority of the Government of the State. Hence the formal induction of the Plebiscite Administrator was to be made by the State Government although he was to be nominated by the UN Secretary General. On August 13 1948 the UN Commission for India and Pakistan ( UNCIP) adopted a resolution embodying its proposals for a settlement. India accepted it; Pakistan did not. On December 11,1948 the UNCIP offered proposals in amplification of the first to provide for a plebiscite. Both sides accepted it. They were formally embodied in its resolution of January 5 1949.

While the tribesmen from Pakistan and Pakistan’s troops were to be withdrawn completely. India was to withdraw only the bulk of its forces retaining some “to assist local authorities in the observance of law and order”. That was not the only asymmetry. The existence of the Government of the State of Jammu and Kashmir was explicitly recognized and so indeed was the State’s accession to India and assumption of external sovereignty. Accordingly the resolution provided that the government of the State of Jammu and Kashmir will safeguard law and order and that human and political rights will be respected.

SHARP CONTRAST

For the other part of the State the resolution said: ‘”Pending a final solution the territory evacuated by the Pakistani troops will be administered by the local authorities under the surveillance of the commission. This is in sharp contrast to the clear recognition of the State Government acting under the Government of India in respect of external relations. No surveillance was provided for this part of the State.

In utter disregard of the UN resolutions by which it swears, Pakistan imposed a new regime on POK on June 21 1952. Rules of Business were presented on October 28. Rule 5 said: The President of Azad Kashmir Government shall hold office during the pleasure of the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference duly recognized as such by the Government of Pakistan in the Ministry of Kashmir Affairs. The Ministry’s Joint Secretary could attend meetings of the Council of Ministers and tender advice on any matter under discussion. What are the legal implications of such a set-up on POK which has existed for over four decades in flagrant breach of the UNCIP’s resolution?

The legality of Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India was incontestable. Even so, India had agreed to a plebiscite in 1948. But among the prime causes which have rendered a plebiscite impossible is Pakistan’s annexation of POK. Its refusal to withdraw its forces from the occupied territory and its policies towards the rest of the State. The war of 1965 showed amply that Pakistan tried to grab the rest of the State at its chosen forum, the battlefield, and failed. There was a cease-fire followed by the Tashkent Declaration.

It is pertinent to recall that Clause (iii) of the Declaration recorded thus: The Prime Minister of India and the President of Pakistan have agreed that relations between India and Pakistan shall be based on the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of each other. And Clause (iv) said: The Prime Minister of India and the President of Pakistan have agreed that both sides will discourage any propaganda directed against the other country and will encourage propaganda which promotes the development of friendly relations between the two countries.

SHIMLA AGREEMENT

What did Pakistan do? Six years after this it launched another war and it once again failed in its objectiveÑto grab Kashmir by force. There was a meeting between the Prime Minister of India and the President of Pakistan at Shimla and the talks resulted in the Shimla Agreement. A look at the first six clauses of the Agreement reproduced below juxtaposed with the ground realities would show how Pakistan has violated all these provisions.

The Prime Minister of India and the President of Pakistan
signing the Shimla Agreement.

Clauses (i) to (vi) of the Shimla Agreement are as follows:

(i) That the principles and purposes of the charter of the United Nations shall govern the relations between the two countries.

(ii) That the two countries are resolved to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations or any other peaceful means mutually agreed upon between them. Pending the final settlement of any of the problems between the two countries neither side shall unilaterally alter the situation and both shall prevent the organization, assistance or encouragement of any acts detrimental to the maintenance of peaceful and harmonious relations.

(iii) That the prerequisite for reconciliation good neighborliness and durable peace between them is a commitment by both the countries to peaceful co- existence respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty and non- interference in each other’s internal affairs on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.

(iv) That the basic issues and causes of conflict which have bedeviled the relations between the two countries for the last 25 years shall be resolved by peaceful means.

(v) That they shall always respect each others national unity, territorial integrity, political independence and sovereign equality.

(vi) That in accordance with the charter of the United Nations they will refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of each other.

COVERT OPERATION

Pakistan ignored the Tashkent Declaration and has violated almost all the six clauses listed above of the Shimla Agreement to which it was a signatory. It has mounted a low cost covert operation in Jammu and Kashmir. The POK has served as a launching pad for this aggression. POK is firmly riveted to Pakistan’s control through the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Council. It is presided over by the Prime Minister of Pakistan and comprises his five nominees the President and Prime Minister of POK and six representatives of the POK Assembly elected by proportional representation. Politically POK is a replica of Pakistan: Basic Democracy of Ayub Khan and Gen. Zia’s Martial Law. In December 1993 the blasphemy laws of Pakistan were extended to the POK. The northern parts of the State have been dismembered from the POK and their status as part of the state questioned. They are ruled directly through a chief executive Lt. Gen. Mohammed Shafiq, appointed by Islamabad with a 26-member Northern Areas Council. The people have never seen elections or enjoyed human rights.

In contrast to the government in Srinagar the regime in Muzaffarabad (POK capital) is one set up by Pakistan in territory it has occupied not acquired by law.

By: M.L.Kotru

LOOT, GRAB AND ARSON KASHMIRI PANDIT PROPERTIES

LOOT, GRAB AND ARSON KASHMIRI PANDIT PROPERTIESIn their crusade launched with utmost fire and fury to establish a radical theocratic system, cleansing the land of Pandit infidels, the Muslim terrorists uncritically accepted as Mujjahids by the Muslim population went whole-hog to buttress up and fine-tune the record of gory traditions of their ancestors who roasted people alive and ripped open the foetuses of pregnant women and resorted to loot, plunder and massacre for whole-sale conversion thereby adding horrendous chapters to the despicable book of barbarity. Unflinching in their obedience to the tradition of tyrants, tile new brand of Muslim terrorists concealing their identities under resounding and high-flown Islamic names could not be found wanting in perpetuating the memory of vandals and consummating the holy task assigned to them by cesspits of Madrasas as the creation of Islamic fanatics. let them goes the credit of performing the sacred rites of loot and pillage, rape and arson.

Once the Kashmiri Pandits have been forced to flee their homes and hearths to uncharted destinations, Nemesis started her dreadful operations. Having looted and ransacked their living abodes, the terrorists and their large mass of Muslim collaborators displayed their fiendishness by torching off the Pandit houses built with the sweat and blood of their life-time earnings. As tribals in 1947 had been lured to the loot and rape of bazars in Srinagar, the Muslims lending unmitigated support to the surge of armed insurgency were promised loot, plunder, rape and unbridled appropriation of Pandit properties.

Loot and Plunder

The loot and pillage of Pandit houses was carried out under a well calibrated plan and strategy. As a first step they were marked red to stand them out from the mixed populations for purposes of loot, rapacious appropriation and arson. For looting operations areas were assigned to the gangs of looters working in cohesion with mosque committees and experts churned out from Madrasas. A lightning operation for stealing rubber shoes from Pandit houses was conducted by the same elements with mosques as pivotal centres and to the knowledge of all mosques had mushroomed at a quick pace in strategic areas with the massive aid of petro-dollars pouring in from channels abroad through local conduits. After the launch of insurgency the waves of looters replicating their history in time tanned out in various directions to get lost into the Pandit habitations and returned gage with immense booty to the precincts of mosques for distribution leaving a chunk for mosque committees led by hard-core Mullahs fanged with bigotry and separatism. The frenzied looters reflecting the apachi culture that has long been the essential ethos of Kashmir are said not to be the traditional thieves and anti-socials, but well-off and prosperous guys suffused with ferocious vengeance and anti-Pandit venom. Overpowered by predatory and confiscatory persuasions, acquired and instinctive, assiduously nurtured and cultivated in the Quranic schools, the Muslim looters broke open the doors and windows or bored burrow-like openings like predatory animals for access into the houses for loot and plunder. It will be a miracle if any Kashmiri Pandit house has escaped the looting sprees. The entire Pandit habitations scattered over the fertile valley have suffered not one bout of loot and plunder, but several such spells of depredations and ravages.

To the shame of the shameless, the Islamic looters set up bazars where the looted property was openly put to sale. The markets picked up for the purpose were not confined to the towns in the valley, but the looted goods were pushed into the national market from Jammu to Delhi to Bombay to Calcutta. Brass utensils spirited away from the kitchens of Pandit houses were pulverised into bits, stuffed into bags and sent across the border as proof of their true Islamic orientation which had faked and lost its sheen by an overlaying of Brahmanic culture. Gas cylinders stolen in spells of loot from the ravaged houses were kept without any twinge of conscience and when their numbers swelled beyond any count, they were openly sold as if slaves were being sold to the Muslim buyers in the slave-market of Turkistan. The shawls of various varieties maintained as the prized possessions looted from the abodes of expelled natives are said to be sold to the sophisticates throughout the national market especially the Bengali market where patronage is lavishly showered on pedlars of loot. Radio-sets, Television sets, wall clocks, sewing machines, newly sewn suits and dresses, saris of prominent delicacy et al acquired through organised loot and legitimised as booty are kept to swell the stocks of those either in business or venture to float new businesses The merciless looters engaged in “wiping out” operations against the religious enemies have not spared their mattings and beddings thereby beefing up the quantum of their material properties considered a value in desert cultures. With the looted properties from Pandit houses businesses have been diversified or rendered a specialised touch. There are looters who are said to peddle in all sorts of electronic goods and gadgets acquired through loot. There are others who have set up antique shops dealing in rare objects dart and artefacts looted from Kashmiri Pandit sophisticates and plucked out from temples.

With incalculable wealth of petro-dollars pouring in, Pakistan pumping millions to sustain and proliferate terrorism and India in response not lagging behind to quench the blazing fires of insurgency by allowing loot of public moneys or through huge packages and booty in kitties, the sole beneficiary, they say, is the Kashmiri Muslim who has visibly scaled new levels of prosperity and affluence incomparable to what he enjoyed prior to 1988 bench-mark. As a sure manifestation and indicator of newly acquired opulence and prosperity, there is an unprecedented construction boom in the valley. New structures are pompously built and old ones are dismantled and re-built more often than not with doors and windows, inner ceilings and G.I.E sheets and other building materials uprooted, plucked out and stripped from the houses of infidels. Those of their eviscerated houses which are yet standing and waiting for the date fixed for their blaze have a saga to relate and a statement to make. They carry grisly scars and gaping wounds as the marauders in their cycles of plunder and sack have looted away the house-hold effects that invested them with the throb and feel of pulsating abodes. Their doors and windows have been pitilessly removed. They are shorn of stones, bricks and other materials vitally placed to render monolithic wholeness to the edifices. Inside houses the same loot and plunder has been affected. Almirahs, ward-robes, electric fittings, water connections, switches, lamp shades, wash-basins and more than most toys of children and their wooden cradles have been looted away with savagery. There are houses galore with no roots to protect them form rains and snows as the ruthless looters in blitzkrieg operations have sadistically dismantled and removed them for installation in their own constructions. There are open spaces which once were sites of throbbing human settlements and piles of blackened ruins covering them now tell a cruel tale of pillage and plunder.

At Naqashpora, Sathu Barbarshah, Srinagar there were Kouls living, a cultured and prosperous family owning four houses which have been razed to the ground said to be the handiwork of near and distant neighbours. In the brutal operation sixteen houses belonging to Pandits were levelled storey by storey, wall by wall and brick by brick and the materials are said to have disappeared into the houses of apachies. As reported to a humanistic organisation working for human rights violations three houses belonging to Maharaja Krishen Bhat, Bhasker Nath Bhat and Kanth Ram of village Malmoh, Tehsil Pattan, District Baramulla were stripped off the G.I.E. sheets serving as roofs of the houses on 15th Dec., 1996 by Muslim looters. The said-village as a Kashmiri Pandit settlement had already suffered orgies of loot and plunder at the hands of tribal looters enjoying autonomy of destructing the religious foes.

Writes Bali, “Those of the houses that have been untorched have the structure of dilapidated walls only with gaping holes for doors and windows are shorn of all fittings, including electric and water taps. As per house-hold and personal effects, these are conspicuously absent. Audio and video tapes alongwith TVs, Video and audio tape recorders, music systems, stereos, kitchen ranges and kitchen gadgets, all have been pilfered. Recording details of this rampage and loot will be ludicrous, bizarre and emotionally painful.”

Writes Dr. R.L. Shant, “They have been reduced to a people condemned to suffer bearing tales of arson and plunder of their belongings left back by them in cities and villages from the very neighbours who leave no stone unturned in propagating through terrorist – friendly media in India that they are the custodians of minorities in Kashmir.”

Dr. Pandita’s House Converted into a Public Latrine

It is dismaying to learn that the ancestral house of Dr. K.N. Pandita situated at Khowja Bagh, Barmulla though standing and left untorched, has been converted into a public latrine at the behest of Muslim bigots. The extreme act of venegefulness against Dr. Pandita is being attributed to his exemplary role in exposing the inner motivations of the Muslim brand of terrorism in Kashmir. Dr. Pandita is a Persian scholar with doctorate from Tehran university and authority on Kashmir affairs. He has had the rare distinction of attending a number of international conferences on Human Rights where he as a deft expert presented the case of Hindus of Kashmir who have been ethnically cleansed from their autochhem abodes and are in exile.

Arson

By the spree of propaganda that they have blazed abroad and the statements that they have blurted out it becomes abundantly clear that the Muslim terrorists are wedded to the cause of Islam which is their soul, faith and driving ideology. As Pandit infidels have no station and role-model in the parochial state of theocracy that is envisaged for Kashmir, they have been ethnically cleansed and ethnic cleansing remains an unfinished agenda if non-Muslims are allowed to retain their abodes in Kashmir which though presently abandoned as a result of their expulsion can be reclaimed through pressures, and intervention from humanistic organisations operating at various levels. With this rationale in view the Muslim militarists have been assiduously busy in destroying the roots of Pandits and. roots as a matter of fact lie deeply embedded in settlements which generate an ethos and a culture pattern. It is to the achievement of sinister end of complete ethnic cleansing and also stalling their return to their land of genesis that all shades of frenzied bigots and dyed-in-the-wool fanatics have embarked upon the policy-path of burning Pandit settlements and the process has been continuously on since 1990. What is being done now is only the replication of their past history. Sayyids way back in the mists of time created waves by decreeing the total destruction of settlements when Kashmiri Pandits at the end of the tether of their patience revolted against severe religious persecution and encroachments on their possessions and assets.

As per a survey conducted by a non-government organisation nearly thirty thousand Kashmiri Pandit houses all over the Valley have been torched off thereby rendering one lakh and fifty thousand Pandits homeless and deracine if an average family comprises five members. The Report submitted to the National Human Rights Commission by the Panun Kashmir Movement puts the number of burnt houses of Hindus at 16,000 till 1995. The Government of J&K State have been silent over it as the victims being non-Mulsims are not on its agenda of policy and programme. Under a flawless design of communal diabolerie and chicanery the entire throbbing habitations of ancient origins have been liquidated with no traces left behind. There is no Bana-Mohalla which has been a principal settlement of Pandits with tremendous history in the life and times of Srinagar as an abode of Culture and spirituality. The pre-eminent house of Razdans with Bhaskar Razdan as one of its scions has been burnt to ashes. Bhaskar Razdan is famous for his Sanskrit rendering of Lalla’s vakhs in metrical verse. The house of Kokiloos in the same locality stands looted and wiped out. A brilliant ancestor of the family is credited with a work on Sanskrit Grammar which in a manuscript form lies in the Research Library buried and dumped in gunny bags. There is no Rainawari nestling in the creeks and inlets of Dal Lake and more than most the birth-place of Pandit Som Nath Beera who got killed in the hills of Doda while quenching communal fires. There is no Batapora in Shopiyan which was the seminary of a galaxy of nationalists who established educational institutions for Muslims whose descendants have destroyed the locality with a crusading zeal leading to the exodus of Pandit Swaroop Nath, a house-hold name in the district, who died in exile. There is no Gushi in Handwara known as mini-Sharda which has been the cradle of spirituality and folk-lore. The settlement with more than hundred houses has been burnt to cinders by the Muslims gone berserk. Mattan in the District of Anantnag as an ancient site of pilgrimage inhabited by Brahman-priests maintaining historically valuable religious records has been destroyed in blazing fires. Chowagam in the same district is lost to Pandits as Muslim vandals have ravaged and blazed the entire habitation. Zainapora, the home-town of Pandit Rishi Dev, a politician of long standing and Pandit Arjan Dev Majboor, a poet and literatteur, already in exile, was completely wiped out by a frenzied mob of thirty thousand Muslims in the wake of Mast Gul, a Pakistani vandal and brutal lout putting the highly revered shrine of Nanda Rishi to flames.

The two families of Pandits staying back in the village were not spared or shown any mercy. Their houses were first ransacked and then set on fire. Muslims hailed Mast Gul by crying hoarse, “Chrar bani hani hani, Mast Gul kati bani- Chrar will be re-built slowly, but Mast Gul is a rare find” and their hurricane fury as usual fell on Pandits and the paper general and his cortege went on watching the orgy of death and destruction befalling Pandits who have not caused portals of governance any anxiety or concern.

Languishing in tattered tents, one-room hutments and rented slums, beleaguered Pandits to their shock and dismay have lost their houses in Malayar, Kralakhud, Ganpatyar, Gundahlmar, Brayikujan, Zaindar Mohalla, Jawahar Nagar, Fateh Kadal, Saffakadal and Karan Nagar. Malayar in the city of Srinagar was a huge sprawling cluster of Pandit houses and it has been burnt down in blazing fires. The houses in Ganpatyar locality standing along roadside have been vengefully torched off. Jawahar Nagar having come up as a posh colony with a modern look and planning presents a scenario of a city sacked by the prototypes of Nadir Shah. Houses of Pandits in Zaindar Mohalla and Karan Nagar have met the same fate at the hands of marauders. Babapora with its interior depths touching the shores of Sheel-teng is a horror scene of war-ravaged waste land. Narparistan sunk in a maze of narrow lanes and bye-lanes has been licking its wounds as destruction is wrought on the Pandit houses which are now a pile of charred ruins.

The Jehadists as per their delineated plans have not confined their acrid war against the native Pandits to the purlieux of Srinagar, but the hurricane fury of their Jehad in its broad sweep has engulfed their settlements dotting the broad terrain of the valley. Poolie contiguous to the spring of Verinag as a village of Pandit concentration has been obliterated with vengeance. Anantnag with its tremendous Hindu past has lost most of its edifices which were sublime in their heights evoking awe and admiration. Verinag with its pristine waters has been a witness to the gruesome fires which Islamists lit in the Pandit houses for their decimation. The Islamic gun-totters have blazed the houses of Pandits in hamlets surrounding Kokernag which has gone gory with the blood of Pandits. The Muslim arsonists have burnt down Pandit settlements in Kupwara, Baramulla, Safapora, Chingund, Ratnipora, Wahibugh, Tahab, Tengapunna, Wachi, Zablipora, Krandigam, Salar, Tral et al.

The twenty eight residential houses of Pandits in Chingund falling in Tehsil Duroo were burnt to ashes by Muslim marauders. Even cowsheds, kothars and other structures were not spared. In the FIR filed by the village chowkidar it is clearly stated that a violent Muslim mob attacked and burnt down all the houses, cowsheds and kothars of Hindus of the village in the wake of Babri Masjid episode.

“It is shocking to learn that the wrath against the Kashmiri Pandits has assumed such proportions that those houses, which had already been burnt down and their skeleton structures only stood there, were either again set ablaze or were demolished or razed to the ground,” writes Arvind Razdan.

The grand old residential house of Pandit Madhav Koul in Anantnag when put to flames was smouldering, smoking and burning for a month’s time. It was a massive edifice built in stone, brick and deodar, a real monument speaking volumes for past glory and hence an eye-sore to the Muslim fanatics. The huge building of Pandit Siri Koul had the same style, grandeur and wood-work and when set ablaze it continued burning for days on end till it was said to have been pulled down by looting away its chiseled logs sustaining the weight of the structure. The house of late Nila Kanth Jad was equally a magnificent structure that had been the target of Muslims since Islamic resurgence in Kashmir and finally Muslim cyclone took a toll of it. The house of late Shridhar Joo Kachru at Babapora in Srinagar when set ablaze continued burning and smoking for ten days and the same is confirmed by Muslim witnesses who have oiled and soiled their hands with the loot of the house.

Records K.N. Pandita, “Indeed these mute and lifeless objects are dangerous because they embody in their lifeless souls the story of a great civilisation that has been allowed to be systematically destroyed by those very elements in building whose civilisation and identity Kashmiri Pandits made the largest contribution.”

Grab of Immovable Properties

There is a concerted movement going on in Kashmir to dispossess Kashmiri Pandits by grabbing and appropriating their left-behind immovable properties. All evidences, material and documentary purporting their Kashmiri origins, are under a fierce onslaught of Muslims. No government of the day despite innumerable petitions and submissions ever moved in the direction of protecting their properties from destruction or unlawful occupation. The properties which have not been torched off and are yet sending have been grabbed or are in the process of being seized by the grabbies. Not only have properties been illegally appropriated but shameless attempts have been made to forge false and unsustainable documents which have been audaciously presented in the courts to justify or substantiate the grab and surprisingly some cases have come to light where courts have issued stay orders without material evidences and even on the basis of fictitious and false documents hastily contrived.

There is a class of grabbies who do not stick to a house which they grab, but go on shifting from house to house as per their sovereign will and their essential targets in the houses are the residues that they lay their sinister hands on. There is another class of grabbies who are more brutal and under religious motivations deem it their right to grab the properties of infidels, who, they believe, are discomfited and have fled the land. Apart from these two classes are herds of intruders who craftily occupy the houses as a first step m the game and subsequently as fait accompli negotiate with the owners through a swarm of touts prowling about Jammu and other metropolises. The Pandit owners when informed of the forcible occupation of their properties are shell-shocked, yet do not take it lying down and submit appeals and plaints in neat language to the concerned authorities in the valley. As the government is and has been in deep paralysis, there is no response to their submissions and plaints which convinces them of the sheer fut~hty of the whole exercise and in despair and desperation are forced to enter into deals at the prices that are offered to them courtesy Muslim touts.

The grab and appropriation of Pandit properties which are left behind in the valley has gained so much of momentum that it has virtually assumed a universal character. There is hardly a Mohalla, locality, village or hamlet where properties have not been occupied and grabbed. In Jawahar Nagar alone there are hundred and eight Kashmiri Pandit houses which are under the illegal occupation of Muslims who taking advantage of collapsed state of law and order or in cahoots with broad sections of administration are emboldened for such intrusion, trespass and grab. In the’ posh locality of Karan Nagar, a Muslim said to be the Head of a Department is said to have grabbed two houses of a Pandit where he has set up his business venture and is battening at the expense of a hapless fugitive. The case of forcible occupation was said to have been brought to the notice of the then Chief Secretary, Ashok Kumar, who is reported to have cravenly expressed his inability to intervene in the matter thereby legitimising the loot and the crab. The locality of Channapora presents a glaring scenario of the forcible appropriation of Pandit houses where Muslims as a matter of right have been staymg their put without any government agency either obstructing or stalling such violations of law of the land. At Gogji Bagh in the cites of Srinagar the three storyed house of a non-Muslin has been ravaged by one Muslim family leaving and another entering at will. A Muslim said to be a vegetable seller from Qamarwari is said to have carted away all the furniture in the house in broad day-light and surprisingly the Muslim neighbours in their chance meetings at Jammu always assured the Pandit of the safety of the house and other house-hold goods and effects. Presently a leader of a renegade militant outfit has chosen the house for his stay and is at pains to force a deal on the Pandit.

There are instances galore establishing that shops, business establishments, tracts of cultivable land and more than most economically lucrative orchards belonging to Pandas have been illegally occupied, grabbed and appropriated. Shops of Pandits in prime commercial sites or areas have been under a constant threat of illegal occupation. From Maharaj Bazar to the end of Residency Road, Srinagar most of the business establishments of Pandits have been intruded, trespassed or occupied. It is also stated that after unlawful occupation, may be in certain cases buttressed by Court verdicts moshy ex-parte, deals were thrust on the Pandits through Muslim touts. Illegal occupations are generally realised through landlord-illegal occupant-admmistration nexus. The sprawling fields of cultivable land and huge thriving orchards have been grabbed by Musluns who share the proceeds in partership with the terrorist outfits and conniving authorities. There are a number of such localities where Muslim hordes vengefully felled the orchards from one end to the other thereby inflicting immense losses on the Pandit owners. The walnut trees generally cultivated within the precincts of Pandit houses have been cruelly felled and wood of the felled trees was kept or disposed of in the markets fetching a lucrative price to the marauders.

JKLF Warning

The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, a banned terrorist outfit, in a bid to establish its so-called secular credentials, has issued a number of warnings to the illegal occupants of shops, business establishments and landed properties belonging to the Pandits and such warnings are a standing and over-arching testimony to the fact of their illegal usurpation by none other than Muslims.

Farooqi’s Statement

In a statement to the press in Jammu, M. Farooqi, leader of the Communist Party of India, suggested that all the left behind properties in Kashmir valley belonging to Kashmir Panda migrants should be declared as ‘custodian properties’ with a view to rehabilitating them in their native homes and hearths as and when they return to the valley. Appreciative of the government move to take the refugees back to the valley, Farooqi made it amply clear that it could be possible only when their houses are protected (from Muslim marauders) and maintained bit the government In his meeting with the Chief Minister and Finance Minister of the state, Farooqi is said to have broached the subject of the forcible grab of the shop belonging to Janki Dass in Akhara building, Maisuma by a protege of Dr. Karan Singh under the very nose of paramilitary picket which was asked to shift its position through correspondence with B.S.F. authorities by the dejure owner who was keen to re-start his business. To the suggestion to declare Kashmiri Pandit properties as “Custodian properties”, the Chief Minister and his Finance Minister to the surprise of Farooqi were said to be in the first instance non-committal and ambivalent.

The Migrant Immovable Property Act, 1997

The Migrant Immovable Property Act, 1997 as passed by the State Legislature establishes that the Kashmiri Pandit properties have been ravaged, destructed, arsoned and grabbed by the Muslim majority and the owners of such properties who have been reduced to absolute penury during the eight-year period of exile are forced to dispose of their left-behind assets in the form of denuded houses and cultivable lands and orchards. The Act also establishes the failure of the State and Central Governments in protecting their properties from the practicing marauders who have inherited as bequest a history of rapacity and plunder. The governments could have protected the properties from the Muslim vandals without the formulation of such an Act as there are laws galore which could have been invoked to establish rule of law. It is absolutely shameful that the state which forms a part of Indian territory had to formulate a distinctive Act for the protection of Pandit properties despite citizenship rights that stand sanctified by the sovereign constitution. The governments should have immediately provided protection to the Kashmiri Pandit properties when the Pandits fell victim to the militarised Islam. Now when each habitation has been decimated and landed assets are grabbed the government as an eye-wash has rushed through the legislation without consulting the Kashmiri Pandits. The reality is that the Pandits are m distress and are constrained to sell off the properties to eke out an existence in camps and rented slums. The government should have come out with liberal loans on softer terms thereby enabling the Pandits to tide over the hardships that they are faced with during the period of wretched and unhappy exile.

The Act does not stipulate to put the predators and usurpers on trial for offences that they have committed thereby reducing a av~ltsed society to the bottom level of barbarism and expelling even the feeblest ray of modernism and rationality.

A Report about vandalisation of Kashmiri Pandit Properties

A report in Kashmir Sentinel date-lined Dec. 15,1995 puts:

“After the vandalisation, destruction and forcible occupation of Kashmiri Pandit houses, it is now a land grab spree in Kashmir. The lands involved are those of displaced Kashmiri Pandit agriculturists and orchardists who had fled the valley four years back to escape the torture and tyranny of the terrorists.

Reports from different parts of the valley say that land holdings of hundreds of displaced KP families have so far been illegally taken over by the local Muslims who manage to get these lands mutated and indications are that hardly any agriculturist will be left with any land in his nan1e in months to come.

The fraudulent transfers are being done and legalised by the officials of the State Revenue Department in return for alternative bribes. The method usually adopted by the land grabbers in connivance with Revenue officials, especially the Patwaris, is to get some local villagers as witnesses to testify that the land holdings in question had been sold or transferred by the owners to the concerned villagers.

Recently a number of fraudulent land deals came to light when the displaced Kashmiri Pandit agriculturists made enquiries about the fate of their land holdings back in the valley.

In one case in Baramulla district a village bully backed by a local terrorist group had not only grabbed the agricultural lands of a KP family, but also had laid his hands on the family’s orchard. In another case in the same district the land owned by a Pandit family had been shown as belonging to the state by tampering with Revenue records.

Those who had grabbed the land had been entered in the records as rightful owners.”

The report further adds, “scores of orchards owned by displaced Kashmiri Pandits had fallen into the hands of unscrupulous Muslim villagers who made huge profits which they shared with the local terrorist groups. The land grabbing phenomenon has attained such alarming dimensions now that the State Government has issued a circular to check the fraudulent deeds.”

The Daily Uqab Srinagar date-lined Nov.27, 1994 reports: –

“A large area of land and houses belonging to Kashmiri Pandits near Mohalla Faqir Wani in Baramulla have been taken over by some people and distributed among themselves. There are standing pear, apple and walnut trees in this land. The income from the produce of these trees is pocketed by these people. The police have not registered any case in this respect so far.”

Representation To The National Human Rights Commission

A humanistic organisation dedicated to the restoration of peace in the valley has taken up the case of Abdul Karim vs Brij Lal Tamiri with National Human Rights Commission. Abdul Karim S/o Mohammad Sultan Sheikh, an employee of Military Engineering Service, has illegally occupied the house of Brij Lal Tamiri at Shivapora, Srinagar which has remained vacant after the family fled away from their house in early 1990. After contacting DIG, Kashmir Range, the owner of the house was informed through an ordinary letter dated: 22nd May, 1996 that the illegal occupant had approached the court of city Munsif, Srinagar directing the parties to maintain status quo, thus allowing the illegal occupation of Brij Lal Tamiri’s house by Abdul Karim.

After a thorough study of the case, the secretary of the NGO, Friends of Kashmir International, submitted a petition dated: 7th July 1996 to Hon’ble Chairman, NHRC, New Delhi which reads as under:

“I have been directed by my NGO to seek your Lordships indulgence in a serious matter of violation of human rights of the internally displaced persons from Kashmir valley living in refugee camps in Jammu, Udhampur and other parts of the country since 1990.

It has come to the notice of our organisation that there are cases of forcible occupation by the locals of vacant residential houses, shops, cowsheds or hutments of displaced persons from the valley. These occupations are all illegal and unauthorised.

In order to regularise forcible and illegal occupation of these places, the entrepreneurs have contrived forged documents and filed suits in courts of law seeking ex-partedecisions to legitimise their forcible occupation. A fraudulent mechanism has been evolved of issuing court summons to the owners. The Honourable courts knowing fully well that respondents being a threatened minority community would not be able to attend its call. What is more, even the summons are invariably not received by the respondents as these do not bear the correct addresses of the displaced persons, or get lost in the ordinary mail. Even the notices issued in local vernacular papers do not reach the displaced persons. Taking undue advantage of the forced absence of the displaced persons far away from their native land for last seven years, their inability to protect their property in absence, their inability to present themselves before any court of law in the valley even if a summon is received by them and lastly unwillingness on the part of state authorities to enforce civil order these illegal occupants move the local courts swiftly to process ex-partedecrees against the displaced persons seeking to dispossess or disinherit them of their properties.

In all fairness the local courts should not at all entertain such applications as involve the properties of displaced persons only if justice is to be done. But, somehow, in an unusual situation prevailing in the valley at present even the Honourable Judges would like not to be anything but accommodative even at the cost of Justice.

Your Lordship may kindly note that forcible occupation of the vacant houses or shelters of the displaced persons is violation of human rights (the right to property, and shelter) and admission of any case in this regard by a local court in which case an ex-parte decision would be the procedural result is further violation of human rights because it denies the persons involved the chance to be heard owing to circumstances beyond control. Evidently the state government has the responsibility to protect the property of the citizens (that being the constitutional right of all Citizens of India) and if it fails in discharging that duty the displaced persons should not suffer on that count. They are already fouled and it should mean their re-foulment which is not only unjust but also inhuman. As if sending them into forced exile is too small a punishment which must be upgraded to forcible occupation of their property.

In the light of what has been submitted our organisation approaches the Hon’ble NHRC with the request that appropriate steps commensurate with the lay.: and charter of human rights be taken at its earliest convenience to stop occupation of the vacant houses and immovable properties of the internally displaced persons from Kashmir either through muscle power or through fraudulent and illegal documentation. We would like to submit that proper steps be taken to give a fair chance to the displaced persons to follow legal proceedings wherever necessary in such cases only in Jammu and not in Srinagar. The threat to life by the armed militants prevents the internally displaced persons from presenting themselves before any court of law in the valley. The government could set up special tribunals in Jammu proper where such cases could be filed and heard. The state Judiciary is expected to demonstrate its responsibility in prevailing extra-ordinary conditions and spare the suffering displaced persons the travail of unnecessary litigation for which they are neither mentally nor financially prepared.”

In another communication dated September 30,1996 to the Hon’ble Chairman, National Human Rights Commission, New Delhi the Secretary of Friends of Kashmir (India) conveys as under:

“We are grateful to the Hon’ble Commission for informing us vice their letter No. 9/73/96-LD of August 1,1996 that the matter of illegal occupation of Pandit houses in Kashmir valley submitted by us on 7th June, 96 has been taken up by the Hon’ble Commisssion with the concerned authorities in the J&K State. However, till date no state authority has contacted us nor do we know what action they would be contemplating to take in the matter.

Through our sources we learn that there is a spate in forcible and illegal occupation of Kashmiri internally displaced persons, left behind property by the locals in valley with tacit connivance of sections of administrative and judicial authorities. Fake documents are produced and accepted to claim proprietary rights over their houses, shops and immovable property. Physical absence of the owners from the scene and their continued inability to challenge false claims in a court of law encourages blatant irregalarities. What is more, reluctance of authorities to devise practical and collective safeguards against such lawlessness leading to a state of loot is deplorable.

Before we proceed to cite a few more cases, we would like to high-light the methodology employed to legalise false. ownership based on the sample study of the forcible and illegal occupation of the residential house of one Brij Lal Tamiri (case already submitted to the Hon’ble Commission on June 7,1996). These are as under:

i) Obtaining stay orders from a court of law even without any proof of the sale of property.

ii) when the victim comes to know of fraudulent ownership, the stay order and appeals for transfer of case to Jammu (for security reason), the opposition to the same is voiced on the plea that since the property is located in Kashmir valley it should not be heard by the Hon’ble Court in Jammu.

iii) a fictitious name is shown as one of the defendants He may be shown as intermediary for selling and described as a known person, relative or a friend. This serves the purpose of prolonging the case and would at the same time break the resolve of the victim. Then the victim could be forced to agree to distress sale of his rightfully owned property.

iv) entire strategy of this litigation revolves round prolonging the case on one pretext or the other, slow down the legal
procedure and oppose the case of transfer to Jammu.

v) Knowing that occupation of the house of internally displaced persons is illegal, under the grab of sta! order, the occupants resort to a large scale damaging of the house besides looting the left-over goods of the displaced victims.

Your lordship, in case of Brij Lal Tamiri, one Maharaj Krishen Watloo has been shown as a dependent, though no person of this name and address exists. No attorney has been given by the owner to anybody for sale of the house or for putting it on tenancy. But the Court has issued stay orders without any proof of purchase by the illegal occupant. This has forestalled the eviction by the police. In the meanwhile the occupant has resorted to a large scale damaging of the construction as the accompanying FIR indicates.

Your Lordship, we may be permitted to submit two more cases of forcible and illegal occupation of the left behind houses of internally displaced persons from the valley. In one case, a local English daily named Northlines of 24th August, 1996 has reported that one fruit merchant of district Pulwama in Kashmir contrived fraudulent sale deed of the residential house of Mrs P.G. (name withheld by the newspaper) an internally-displaced person originally residing in Hyderpora, Srinagar.

In another case, one Lassa Nath Bhat resident of Gouripora-Rawalpora tehsil and district Badgam in Kashmir valley issued a public notice in Kashmir Times of September 1, 1996 saying that somebody had produced fake documents and claimed the ownership of his left-behind residential house.

In view of the seriousness of the violation of human rights, especially the right to property, we are concerned h the matter and approach the Hon’ble Commission could besides holding an independent proble, advise the Government of J&K State to issue orders for :

a) Stopping sale of any kind of immovable property of the internally displaced persons from the valley until the time they resume normal life in places of their origin.

b) appointing an independent tribunal headed by a High Court Judge based in Jammu. All cases of internally displaced persons’ property could be referred to this Tribunal for speedy and summary disposal.

c) holding the forcible occupants responsible for damaging the house and looting of immovable property in it. Without a strong legal action this violation of human rights may not be stopped.

Many internally displaced persons are lodging FIRs with the police in Jammu stating that their houses/shops/orchards/lands have been fraudulently grabbed by musclemen with the connivance of authorities. As such, the Hon’ble Commission should supervene and stop violation of the rights to property of the displaced persons. As and when more cases come to our notice, we shall submit these to your Lordship for proper disposal.”

Grab of the Shop of M.K. Dass

M.K. Dass and Mrs Sheila Dass were in regular tenancy of a shop in the Akhara building, Maisuma. The shop as alleged is broken open, all medical goods and medicines ham been spirited away and a Muslim is said to have grabbed the shop with the connivance of one Puran Shal1 who manages and overlords the Akhara properties. M.IC. Dass has approached all concerned authorities for the restoration of the shop, but as alleged he is not heard. He coven met the Chief Minister who promised him redressal, but nothing concrete has emerged. His correspondence with authorities makes a curious reading.

That the tenant of the shop was in regular tenancy is perhaps substantiated by the letter that the BSF authority wrote to the Divisional Commissioner. The letter reads:

No. 311/16/OPS/15BN/96/730
HQ Srinagar Frontier
Border Security Force
Srinagar (Kmr)
09 Sept. 96

To
The Divisional Commissioner,
J&K Government
Srinagar.

Sub:- Removal of Bunker/Payment of compensation in favour of Shri M.K. Dass Prop. M/s Jank Dass and Co. Budshah Chowk, Srinagar.

Sir,

Please refer to an application submitted by M.K.Dass, Prop. M/s Janki Dass and Co. Budshah Chowk, Srinagar (Copy enclosed for ready reference).

1. In this context, it is to inform you that the matter has been got enquired into depth through concerned Sector DIG/Unit Comdt and reveals following:

a) During the year 1992, Security Forces were deployed in Kashmir valley and one bunker was constructed by security forces during that time to deal with militancy in the area in front of AKHARA BUILDING gate. This bunker is strategically covering MAISUMA road as well as dominate Akhara Chowk and adjoining areas. This bunker also provides Security to Akhara building and checks the entry/exist of visitors to Akhara building.

b) Since, Maisuma is the backbone of militancy and all sorts of demonstrations/ processions, grenade throwing are planned and conducted by public in Lal Chowk area, therefore presence of this bunker is essential to monitor the movement of the militants/public in the area.

2. The bunker in question is sited at appropriate place and tactically deployed. This bunker of course has obstructed the entrance to M/s Janki Dass and Co. but for Security reasons it is not possible for us to remove the said bunker.

Therefore, it is recommended that necessary compensation may be provided to the owner of the Shop, if deemed fit.

Yours faithfully

sd/-(S.Chanhan)
Addl. Deputy Inspector Genl
(Operations )

The Inspector General of Police, Kashmir Zone, Srinagar wrote to M.K. Dass which reads as under:

Zonal Police Headquarters Kashmir Srinagar
No. Crime/Misc/97/1550
Dated: 3.3.1997.
M.K. Dass House No.01, Sector No.10 Nanak Nagar Jammu.

Please refer your application regarding shop breaking/replacing the shop locks by Puran Shah, Manager, Dashnami Akhara Trust with the assistance of local gundas and looting the medicines from the shop known as Janki Dass and Co. Chemists 16 Akhara building Rudshah Chowk Srinagar.

Report called from concerned SP is enclosed.

sd/-Inspector General of Police
Kashmir Zone.3.3.97

M.K. Das has submitted to the Inspector General of Police, Kashmir Zone as under:

To

The Inspector General of Police
Kashmir Zone.
Ref: No. M-2/97/SPE/64246 dated. 27.2.97.

Sub:- Complaint against criminal trespass and looting of Goods/Cash records from a Shop M/s Janki Dass and Co. 16, Akhra Building Srinagar.

Sirs

In reference to above quoted letter on my application A; the application of Mr. M.K. Dass and Mrs. Sheela Dass.

I am submitting the following few lines for clarification:

1. That the shop is under the tenancy of Mahraj Krishan Dass and Sheela Dass. It is made clear that the shop under our tenancy belongs to Dashnami Akhra Trust and the tenancy started from 1961. However, earlier also the shop was in our constructive possession before 1961, being partners of a firm “Harker and Co.”.

2. It is also made clear that Sh. Janki Nath Dass, Father of M.K. Dass and B.L. Dass and father-in-law of Mrs. Sheela Dass expired in the year “1964″ Nov. as such tenancy of the said-shop devolved on Shrimati Janki Devi, widow of Shri Janki Nath Dass-II, Mr. B.L. Dass son of Sh. Janki Nath Dass III M.K. Dass S/o Janki Nath Dass. However it was Sh. B.L. Dass and Shri M.K. Dass who were working in the said-shop as the Proprietors of the firm M/s Janki Dass and Co.

3. That in the year 1990 on account of militancy above mentioned proprietors were forced to stop their business as the shop was located at a vulnerable place known as Budshah Chowk here a permanent BSF post was functioning in front of the shop and the militants used to attack the said-place.

4. It is pertinent to note that in the year 1992 a bunker was constructed by the Security Forces (BSF) to deal with the militancy in front of the shop and thereby obstructed the entrance and exit of customers to the shop. As there was no business conducted in the said-shop and because of militancy myself alongwith other family members shifted to Jammu. I used to visit Srinagar invariably with a purpose to transact my business in the shop as I and other members of the family were dependent on the income of the said-shop.

5. That on account of the increased index of militant acts a Pucca/concrete bunker was constructed completely closing the entry in the said-shop as the huge structure was built in front of the shop. Be that as it may, it is stated that the said-shop was full of medicines and other goods i.e; Thermametcrs, Cotton packs, Bandages, Sythethescopes, BP apparatus, air cushions, hot water bottles, baby soaps, oils and powders, surgical items like scissors, forceps, kidney trays, cadguts, etc. valued Rs. 4.00 lacs.

6. That in this connection I approached Director General BSF and other authorities to shift the bunker to some other site so that I could transact my business in the said-shop but I was not allowed to open or continue my business by the BSF authority for reasons of security of the area as was intimated by them through a despatch dated Sept. 9,1996 addressed to the Divisional Commissioner Kashmir. Moreover, they recommended the case for compensation to be paid to the firm M/s Janki Dass and Co. Nothing of the sort that expired medicines would prove dangerous and was advanced by them to the Management of the Trust was communicated to me which they could have done if the need was. It is worth to note that the concocted story furnished by the BSF authority to the management of the trust is nothing but explains a drama to camalouge their real involvement in this scandalous affair, where monetary consideration cannot be ruled out.

7. That I am in possession of the correspondence letters with the Home Ministry of India/State Governments and other concerned authorities of BSF which clarifies the aforesaid position.

8. That in response to the point mentioning that the firm did not pay any rent to the Management is all false and baseless. The fact is that no such default in payment of the rent has been ever committed either by late Pt. Janki Nath Dass or his predecessors. The firm has paid the rent up-to-date. The last receipt being of 15.11.89, then again a draft of Rs. 10,000/ – on account was sent through a registered draft No. 04183 State Bank of India aft. 27.12.1996 addressed to Secretary Mahadev Giri, Dashnama Akhra Trust, Budshah Chowk, Srinagar but the same was deliberately returned back and avoided without furnishing any reasons by Akhra Management. I again sent the draft to the concerned but it met the same fate with the remarks that the addressee had left the place without leaving any address here which was all fraud and fabricated. As the draft was addressed in the name of Secretary Dashnami Akhara Trust for which a routine office is functioning there was no question that the addressee had left the place. It transpires that Akhara Management in connivance with BSF authorities of the said post/bunker concocted a story of”Emitting foul smell” and wanted to remove the expired medicines from the shop as the chemical could be dangerous in case of any explosion caused near the bunker is only to interfere and induct Manzoor Ahmed Narwari into the said premises as a trespasser and in this deal Puran Shah, Manager of the Trust, the BSF Personnel of the post/bunker and Manzoor Ahmed are party and therefore they are to be criminally prosecuted.

It is stated that because of my filing of an FIR they have not succeeded in dispossessing me, but if they are not dealt properly they can succeed in their nefarious designs. It is also stated what business had the Management of the Akhara Trust to break open the lock of my shop and then take out the medicines/goods valued about Rs.4.00 to 5.00 lacs. It is a clear case of trespass and theft.

I sincerely feel that the culprits are arrested and immediately punished.

Thanking you,

Yours sincerely,
sd/- (M.K.Dass)
sd/- (Sheela Dass)

Fraudulent Allotment of Shops by the Executive Officer of Srinagar Municipality

Jaydish Lal, Bihari Kak, Vinod Kumar Suri, Manohar Lal Sadhana, and Raman Kumar were the tenants of the shops in the Municipal Building complex, Hazuribagh, Srinagar. As the Muslim terrorism had its thrust against the Kashmiri Hindus, the tenants deserted their shops to take shelter in safer zones. In their absence the Executive Ofticer of Srinagar Municipality, some Ganai, is said to have allotted their shops to Muslims with the result their shops were broken open and goods pilfered or looted. The tenants moved earth and heaven for the redressal of injustice perpetrated on them, but to no effect. They called on the concerned Minister, Molvi Iftikar Hussian Ansari, who is an expert in prevarication and procrastination and has dragged his feet from using the whip of law against the intruders and defaulters for the fact that all involved are of the Muslim brand.

In a representation to the Chief Minister the tenants wrote: –

a) We were allotted shops in the complex by Srinagar Municipality in the year 1977 for a period of 17 years with the clause that the lease period would be “renewable thereafter in favour of the lessee.”

b) In the year 1990 we along with lakhs of other members of the minority community were forced to migrate from Srinagar in the wake of wide spread violence. We locked our shops as we could not take them out because of turbulent conditions.

c) While in migration we learnt that the shopping complex had been partially gutted in an incident of fire in July, 1990. However some shops including the one belonging to the applicant No.2 remained unaffected by the fire.

d) Early this year we learnt that by taking advantage of the absence of the members of the minority community some unscrupulous officials of the Srinagar Municipality were reallotting their shops to third parties without following the process of law or without sending proper notices to the bona fide allottees of the said-shops.

e) We have reasons to believe that the papers of allotment have been prepared illegally in a clandestine manner by the Executive Officer of Srinagar Municipality, Mr. Ganai. In certain cases he has also forged the signatures of the earlier Administrator of Srinagar Municipality for illegally allotting the shops to others.
f) The shops have been re-allotted at a premium of only Rs.30,000 per shop while the current market value of the shops is around Rs.7 lakhs each. We have authentic information to believe that Mr.Ganai has reportedly accepted Rs.2.00 lakhs per shop as illegal gratification from the illegal allottees of the said-shops.

g) In case the shops that were not gutted in fire, the locks were broken open and goods worth lakhs stolen by the said official before allotting the shops to some other person.

h) While none of the tenants of the shops of the said complex including those who have been running their business from these shops for all these years has been paying rent to the Srinagar Municipality due to the troubled conditions in the valley. Only the migrants who have at least paid partial rent have been singled out for this treatment.

i) In view of the foregoing it will be clear to your goodself that certain officials of Srinagar Municipality have tried to tarnish the image of the administration by acting in a manner contrary to the declared policy statements of the J&K Government as well as the Government of India. While the Union Ministers and bureaucrats belonging to both the Union Government and the State Government have time and again been voicing the resolve of the government regarding return of the Kashmiri migrants to the valley soon, these officials of the Municipality, just in order to make a quick buck, have been working against this policy by making all efforts to ensure that the migrants do not return to the valley.

Their action of re-allotment of the migrant shops is one step in this direction.

We, therefore, request your goodself to please use your good offices to ensure that the culprits in this case of blatant misuse of power and corruption are brought to book and the shops are restored to the original owners of the said-shops after making good the loss caused to them.

Dr. Kashi Nath Ticku’s House Grabbed by the Government Department

Dr. Kashi Nath Ticku now an octogenarian has been in banishment for the last eight years. It is reliably learnt that he has been spending the evening of his life in Gujrat. He is pained and anguished to learn that his posh house at Jawahar Nagar in Srinagar city has been grabbed. After making thorough enquiries about the grab he learns that it is not a Muslim who has broken open his house and spirited away all the goods from his house but it is a Government Department that has occupied his house in his absence in exile. The Department in the hands of frauds, fanatics and unscrupulous elements has been in occupation of his house for purposes of running a school. Dr. Ticku has been on jaunts to Srinagar to get his house vacated and has been meeting the officers of the Department of Education to ensure the vacation of his house. It was after a long struggle that the officers of the Department agreed to pay him rent since the time the house has been under its occupation. But no rent has been paid to him so far. Every tin1e he flies to Srinagar he has to re-open his case as the officers suffused with communal venom feign ignorance about the illegal occupation.

Dr. Kashi Nath Ticku is a doctor be profession and has been vitally linked with the so-called nationalist movement led by Sheikh Abdullah. What his contributions have been to the movement can be learnt from the galaxy of freedom fighters who wore honestly motivated for heralding a new era of democracy, liberalism and religious Catholicism.

Felling of Poplars from a Kashmiri Pandit House and Hakim Ghulam Hassan

Hakim Ghulam Hassan is said to be a retired judge from the state judiciary. His house near Polytechnic, Gogjibagh, Srinagar is fringed by the house of a Kashmiri Pandit hailing from a respectable family of Mattoos from Rainawari. The house of the Pandit was deserted by the inmates when the Muslim killers started the murder of Kashmiri Pandits as they were labelled as the agents of India and anti-Muslim.

It was after a year or so that Hakim Ghulam Hassan is said to have informed his Kashmiri Pandit neighbour that he had sold the poplars growing within the premises of his house for a sum of Rs. 10,000 which he would be remitting to him very soon. The Pandit took Hakim Ghulam Hassan for his word and believed that the money would come to him sooner or later. Rut the hopes of the Pandit were belied. Money never came to him.

The Kashmiri Pandit in absolute despair is said to have gone on writing to his Muslim neighbour about the despatch of money. Ghulam Hassan is said to have proved callous and discourteous in not writing back to his Pandit neighbour Ultimately the Kashmiri Pandit is said to have phoned him from Jammu and asked his immediate neighbour to send him the money that had accrued from the sale of poplars. Hakim Ghulam Hassan reportedly informed him that he had deposited the money in the treasury. The Pandit put the word “treasury” to an incisive analysis but could not come to any satisfying rational conclusion.

Hakim Ghulam Hassan perhaps meant that the money was deposited in the coffers of Muslim killers who are said to have earned full-scale support and succour from men of his breed.

Courtsy : M.L.Koul

Indian Complaint to the Security Council

Indian Complaint to the Security Council
Letter Dated January 1, 1948
from the Representative of India
to the President of the Security Council (S/628)

The Government of India have instructed me to transmit to you the following telegraphic communication:

“1. Under Article 35 of the Charter of the United Nations, any Member may bring any situation whose continuance is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security to the attention of the Security Council. Such a situation now exists between India and Pakistan owing to the aid which invaders, consisting of nationals of Pakistan and of tribesmen from the territory immediately adjoining Pakistan on the north-west, are drawing from Pakistan for operations against Jammu and Kashmir, a State which has acceded to the Dominion of India and is part of India. The circumstances of accession, the activities of the invaders which led the Government of India to take military action against them, and the assistance which the attackers have received and are still receiving from Pakistan are explained later in this memorandum. The Government of India request the Security Council to call upon Pakistan to put an end immediately to the giving of such assistance, which is an act of aggression against India. If Pakistan does not do so, the Government of India may be compelled, in self-defence, to enter Pakistan territory, in order to take military action against the invaders. The matter is, therefore, one of extreme urgency and calls for immediate action by the Security Council for avoiding a breach of international peace.

“2. From the middle of September 1947, the Government of India had received reports of the infiltration of armed raiders into the western parts of Jammu province of Jammu and Kashmir State; Jammu adjoins West Punjab, which is a part of the Dominion of Pakistan. These raiders had done a great deal of damage in that area and taken possession of part of the territory of the State. On 24 October, the Government of India heard of a major raid from the Frontier Province of the Dominion of Pakistan into the Valley of Kashmir. Some two thousand or more fully armed and equipped men came in motor transport, crossed over to the territory of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, sacked the town of Muzaffarabad, killing many people and proceeded along the Jhelum Valley road towards Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir State. Intermediate towns and villages were sacked and burnt, and many people killed. These raiders were stopped by Kashmir State troops near Uri, a town some fifty miles from Srinagar, for some time, but the invaders got around them and burnt the power house at Mahora, which supplied electricity to the whole of Kashmir.

“3. The position, on the morning of 26 October, was that these raiders had been held by Kashmir State troops and part of the civil population, who had been armed, at a town called Baramulla. Beyond Baramulla there was no major obstruction up to Srinagar. There was immediate danger of these raiders reaching Srinagar, destroying and massacring large numbers of people, both Hindus and Muslims. The State troops were spread out all over the State and most of them were deployed along the western border of Jammu province. They had been split up into small isolated groups and were incapable of offering effective resistance to the raiders. Most of the State officials had left the threatened areas and the civil administration had ceased to function. All that stood between Srinagar and the fate which had overtaken the places en route followed by the raiders was the determination of the inhabitants of Srinagar, of all communities, and practically without arms, to defend themselves. At this time Srinagar had also a large population of Hindu and Sikh refugees who had fled there from West Punjab owing to communal disturbances in that area. There was little doubt that these refugees would be massacred if the raiders reached Srinagar.

“4. Immediately after the raids into Jammu and Kashmir State commenced, approaches were informally made to the Government of India for the aeceptance of the accession of the State to the Indian Dominion. (It might be explained in parenthesis that Jammu and Kashmir from a State whose ruler, prior to the transfer of power by the United Kingdom to the Dominions of India and Pakistan, had been in treaty relations with the British Crown, which controlled its foreign relations ceased with the transfer of power on 15 August last, and Jammu and Kashmir lilce other States acquired the right to accede to either Dominion.)

“5. Events moved with great rapidity, and the threat to the Valley of Kashmir became grave. On 26 October, the ruler of the State, His Highness Maharaja Sir Hari Singh, appealed urgently to the Government of India for military help. He also requested that the Jammu and Kashmir State should be allowed to accede to the Indian Dominion. An appeal for help was also simultaneously received by the Government of India from the largest popular organization in Kashmir, the National Conference, headed by Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah. The Conference further strongly supported the request for the State’s accession to the Indian Dominion. The Government of India were thus approached not only officially by the State authorities, but also on behalf of the people of Kashmir, both for military aid and for the accession of the State to India.

“6. The grave threat to the life and property of innocent people in the Kashmir Valley and to the security of the State of Jammu and Kashmir that had developed as a result of the invasion of the Valley demanded immediate decision by the Government of India on both the requests. It was imperative on account of the emergency that the responsibility for the defence of Jammu and Kashmir State should be taken over by a Government capable of discharging it. But, in order to avoid any possible suggestion that India had utilised the State’s immediate peril for her own political advantage, the Government of India made it clear that once the soil of the State had been cleared of the invader and normal conditions restored, its people would be free to decide their future by the recognized democratic methods of a plebiscite or referendum which, in order to ensure complete impartiality, might be held under international auspices.

“7. The Government of Indian felt it their duty to respond to the appeal for armed assistance because:

“(1) They could not allow a neighbouring and friendly State
to be compelled by force to determine either its internal affairs
or its external relations;
“(2) The accession of Jammu and Kashmir State to the
Dominion of India made India really responsible for the
defence of the State.

“8. The intervention of the Government of India resulted in saving Srinagar. The raiders were driven back from Baramulla to Uri and are held there by Indian troops. Nearly 19,000 raiders face the Dominion forces in this area. Since operations in the Valley of Kashmir started, pressure by the raiders against the western, and south-western border of Jammu and Kashmir State had been intensified. Exact figures are not available. It is understood, however, that nearly 15,000 raiders are operating a gainst this part of the State. State troops are besieged in certain areas. Incursions by the raiders into the State territory, involving murder, arson, loot, and the abduction of women continue. The booty is collected and carried over to the tribal areas to serve as an inducement to the further recruitment of tribesmen to the ranks of the raiders. In addition to those actively participating in the raid, tribesmen and others, estimated at 100,000 have been collected in different places in the districts of West Punjab bordering Jammu and Kashmir State, and many of them are receiving military training under Pakistani nationals, including officers of the Pakistan Army. They are looked after in Pakistan territory, fed, clothed, armed and otherwise equipped, and transported to the territory of Jammu and Kashmir State with the help, direct and indirect, of Pakistani officials, both military and civil.

“9. As already stated, the raiders who entered the Kashmir Valley in October came mainly from the tribal areas to the north-west of Pakistan and, in order to reach Kashmir, passed through Pakistan territory. The raids along the south-west border of the State, which had preceded the invasion of the valley proper, had actually been conducted from Pakistan territory, and Pakistan nationals had taken part in them. This process of transmission across Pakistan territory and untilisation of that territory as a base of operations against Jammu and Kashmir State continues. Recently, military operations against the western and south-western borders of the State have been intensified, and the attackers consist of nationals of Pakistan as well as tribesmen. These invaders are armed with modern weapons, including mortars and medium machine-guns, wear the battle dress of regular soldiers and, in recent engagements, have fought in regular battle formation and are using the tactics of modern warfare. Man-pack wireless sets are in regular use and even mark V mines have been employed. For their transport the invaders have all along used motor vehicles. They are undoubtedly being trained and to some extent led by regular officers of the Pakistan Army. Their rations and other supplies are obtained from Pakistan territory.

“10. These facts point indisputably to the conclusion

“(a) that the invaders are allowed transit across Pakistan
territory;
“(b) that they are allowed to use Pakistan territory as a base
of operations;
“(c) that they include Pakistan nationals;
“(d) that they draw much of their military equipment,
transportation, and supplies (including petrol) from Pakistan;
and
“(e) that Pakistan officers are training, guiding, and
otherwise actively helping them.

“There is no source other than Pakistan from which they could obtain such quantities of modern military equipment, training or guidance. More than once, the Government of India had asked the Pakistan Government to deny to the invaders facilities which constitute an act of aggressian and hostility against India, but without any response. The last occasion on which this request was made was on 22 December, when the Prime Minister of India handed over personally to the Prime Minister of Pakistan a letter in which the various forms of aid given by Pakistan to the invaders were briefly recounted and the Government of Pakistan were asked to put an end to such aid promptly; no reply to this letter has yet been received in spite of a telegraphic reminder sent on 26 December.

“11. It should be clear from the foregoing recital that the Government of Pakistan are unwilling to stop the assistance in material and men which the invaders are receiving from Pakistan territory and from Pakistan nationals, including Pakistan Government personnel, both military and civil. This attitude is not only un-neutral, but constitutes active aggression against India, of which the State of Jammu and Kashmir forms a part.

“12. The Government of India have exerted persuasion and exercised patience to bring about a change in the attitude of Pakistan. But they have failed, and are in consequence confronted with a situation in which their defence of Jammu and Kashmir State is hampered and their measures to drive the invaders from the territory of the State are greatly impeded by the support which the raiders derive from Pakistan. The invaders are still on the soil of Jammu and Kashmir and the inhabitants of the States are exposed to all the atrocities of which a barbarous foe is capable. The presence, in large numbers, of invaders in those portions of Pakistan territory which adjoin parts of Indian territory other than Jammu and Kashmir State is a menace to the rest of India. Indefinite continuance of the present operations prolongs the agony of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, is a drain on India’s resources and a constant threat to the maintenance of peace between India and Pakistan. The Government of India have no option, therefore, but to take more effective military action in order to rid Jammu and Kashmir State of the invader.

“13. In order that the objective of expelling the invader from Indian territory and preventing him from launching attacks should be quickly achieved, Indian troops would have to enter Pakistan territory; only thus could the invader be denied the use of bases and cut off from his sources of supplies and reinforcements in Pakistan. Since the aid which the invaders are receiving from Pakistan is an act of aggression against India, the Government of India are entitled, under international law, to send their armed forces across Pakistan territory for dealing effectively with the invaders. However, as such action might involve armed conflict with Pakistan, the Government of India, ever anxious to proceed according to the principles and aims of the Charter of the United Nations, desire to report the situation to the Security CDuncil under Article 35 of the Charter. They feel justified in requesting the Security Council to ask the Government of Pakistan.

“(1) to prevent Pakistan Government personnel, military
and civil from participating or assisting in the invasion of
Jammu and Kashmir State;
“(2) to call upon other Pakistani nationals to desist from
taking any part in the fighting in Jammu and Kashmir State;
“(3) to deny to the invaders: (a) access to any use of its
territory for operations against Kashmir, (b) military and other
supplies, (c) all other kinds of aid that might tend to prolong
the present struggle.

“14. The Government of India would stress the special urgency of the Security Council taking immediate action on their request. They desire to add that military operations in the invaded areas have, in the past few days, been developing so rapidly that they must, in self- defence, reserve to themselves the freedom to take, at any time when it may become necessary, such military action as they may consider the situation requires.

“15. The Government of India deeply regret that a serious crisis should have been reached in their relation with Pakistan. Not only is Pakistan a neighbour but, in spite of the recent separation, India and Pakistan have many ties and many common interests. India desires nothing more earnestly than to live with her neighbour-State on terms of close and lasting friendship. Peace is to the interest of both States; indeed to the interests of the world. The Government of India’s approach to the Security Council is inspired by the sincere hope that, through the prompt action of the Council, peace may be preserved.

“16. The text of this reference to the Security Council is being telegraphed to the “Government of Pakistan.”