The chief of the Kashmiri militant group Hizbul Mujahideen, Syed Salahuddin, who was recently designated a global terrorist by the United States, has admitted that the organisation had carried out terror attacks in India, ANI reported. During an interview with Pakistani channel GeoNews, Salahuddin is believed to have said that he had the ability to not only purchase weapons from international markets, but also deliver them anywhere if he is paid for it.
“Till now, our focus was on Indian occupation forces. All the operations we have carried out or those that are underway, we focus only on the installations of these occupational forces,” Salahuddin said, according to ANI.
The Hizbul chief had addressed a press conference at the Central Press Club in Muzaffarabad on Saturday. Claiming that the Kashmiri militants could target any place in India, he said the militant organisation had, however, “exercised restraint” to avoid giving a chance to New Delhi to label their “legitimate struggle” as terrorism, Dawn reported.
“Every freedom fighter is a legitimate freedom fighter and not a terrorist. The US and India cannot quote a single incident to prove that Kashmiri freedom fighters are terrorists,” he said.
Salahuddin further called the US administration’s decision to designate him a specially designated global terrorist “idiotic” and a move taken to “please and satisfy” Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “without any reasoning and grounds”, Dawn reported. “It does not meet a single of the conditions to designate anyone as a global terrorist,” he said of the Donald Trump administration’s decision.
The US statement that labeled Salahuddin as a global terrorist said that in September 2016, he had vowed “to block any peaceful resolution to the Kashmir conflict, threatened to train more Kashmiri suicide bombers, and vowed to turn the Kashmir Valley into a graveyard for Indian forces”. The announcement came on June 26 following Modi’s meetings with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defence Secretary James Mattis in Washington.
Salahuddin’s remarks prove us right, says India
Condemning Salahuddin’s admission that Hizbul Mujahideen had carried out terror attacks in India, the Centre on Monday said his designation as a global terrorist by the United States was “well deserved”, reported PTI. Home ministry spokesperson Ashok Prasad said the government had described Salahuddin as a terrorist all along, and his own remarks had confirmed that. Prasad also said Salahuddin was “instrumental” in providing funds to terrorists and separatists.
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