New Delhi: India secured a diplomatic advantage over Pakistan when the US firmly sided with India in its war against terrorism. America designated Syed Salahuddin, the Pak-based head of the largest militant group in Kashmir – Hizbul Mujahideen, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT).
The joint statement made by the two countries named Pak based terror groups – Hizbul-Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, D-Company, ‘and their affiliates’ – a ‘global scourge’. It also directly asked Pakistan ‘to expeditiously bring to justice the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai, Pathankot, and other cross-border terrorist attacks perpetrated by Pakistan-based groups.’
The statement was released at the end of the meeting, the first, of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and newly elected US President Donald Trump. Both have displayed an unforgiving stance against terrorism and that perhaps explains why the one big deliverable from Modi’s just concluded visit to the US came in this direction.
US’s firm stand with India against Pak-based terror groups was a diplomatic achievement for India for two reasons.
First, it means that Salahuddin, a Pakistani citizen, is not just India’s enemy anymore but a ‘global’ terrorist. Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, in his address to UN general assembly last year, called Burhan Wani, Hizbul militant, a ‘martyr’.
Secondly, it sends a message to China that has been stalling India’s efforts since 2014 to place UN sanctions against the Hizb chief, who India has claimed has close links to Al Qaida.
Salahuddin being named an SDGT comes almost at the end of a year long violence and unrest in Kashmir, following the killing in an encounter of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani. Wani’s death on July 8 last year set off a spiral, aided by frequent militant attacks, of violence in the valley in which close to 200 people have been killed.
Syed Salahuddin has been a constant threat to India since early 1990s first as a commander in HM, then as its commander in chief, and now as the chief of United Jehad Council, an umbrella body of anti-India terror organisations.
Salahuddin, born as Yusuf Shah in Budgam’s Soibugh area, was a member of Jamaat-e-Islami for a long time. By his own admission Salahuddin came from a family of separatists. His brother was a long time member of All Jammu and Kashmir Plebiscite Front, a separatist political outfit, and his grandfather used to celebrate India’s Independence Day as a ‘black day’.
Many still wonder how different Kashmir’s present would have been if the elections were not rigged and Salahuddin went on to win his seat.
In an interview Salahuddin gave to Kashmiri local dailies in 2008, he claimed that ‘armed struggle’ against India would have begun even if he had won the elections.
The present day Hurriyat leader Yasin Malik had campaigned for Salahuddin along with three other friends — Abdul Hamid Sheikh, Ashfaq Majid Wani and Javid Mir — who eventually went on to found a local militant group known as Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF).
A few months later, in 1989, Mohammed Ahsan Dar, a member of JKLF, split away with a few members to form his own militant outfit which he named Hizbul Mujahideen.
In 1993 Salahuddin along with two accomplices - Ghulam Mohammed Sufi and Ashraf Saraf – crossed over to Pakistan to set up base in Pakistan and from there manage HM operations in Kashmir. During this time HM is estimated to have been commanding over 10,000 militants in Kashmir.
Salahuddin is said to have survived a few attempts by ISI to replace him with their own man as the head of HM.
In his book ‘Kashmir - the Vajpayee Years’ he claimed that Salahuddin had personally contacted Dulat and also sent messages through others insisting that he was looking to surrender to India and was waiting for a signal from the Indian side to make his move.
However, Dulat claims despite his repeated warnings, the PMO remained uninterested and possibly missed the chance for good.
‘I was no longer in R&AW but in the PMO, where the focus was the 2002 elections rather than bringing individuals back, even someone as big a deal as Salahuddin. Just imagine what a big thing it would have been in Kashmir if Salahuddin had returned and begun a dialogue — for, after all, he was a political person,’ Dulat said in an interview while talking about his book.
It was a claim that Salahuddin’s son, who lives in the valley, called a ‘Himalayan lie’. Salahuddin’s wife, five sons and two daughters, live in Kashmir and are known to be in regular touch with him.
Last year, in August, Salahuddin had threatened to attack Home Minister Rajnath Singh when he was on schedule to visit Islamabad to attend a SAARC meet. A month later Salahuddin vowed to block any peaceful resolution to the Kashmir conflict and threatened to train Kashmiri suicide bombers and turn the Kashmir valley “into a graveyard for Indian forces.”
In the bloody, almost three decade long, conflict in Kashmir, HM has been at the forefront of murders of hundreds of civilians, bureaucrats, politicians and security forces, and has lost hundreds of militants itself.
As Syed Salahuddin joins Zaki Ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Mohammad Masood Azhar in the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT), he now becomes not just a global target but an embarrassment for Pakistan.
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