THE Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front(JKLF), a leading pro-independence group,has admitted for the first time that its cadres wereinitially trained in arms and guerrilla war-fare by Pakistan's main spy agency,the Inter-Servies Intelligence(ISI). The training was imparted during the late eighties under a deal between the ISI and the JKLF. The chief of the JKLF,Amanullah Khan,has said that the deal struck in 1987 carried heapproval of General Zia-ul-Haq, the military ruler at that time. Khan's revelations constitutes part of the second volumeof his autobiography titled Jehad-e-Musalsal or The Unending Struggle,which was formally launched inIslamabad on June 25.In his book.,Khan claimsthat the ISI first established contact with the JKLF in early 1987 through the organisation's senior leader Dr.Farook Haider. Khan had just been deported from England and was in Karachi when he received Haider's message regarding the ISI's proposal.Although Khan initially asked Haider to finalise the deal with theISI ,he himself heald meetings with the Pakistani officials ar a later date.
Apparenntly, the deal was struck following an understanding on the part ofPakistani offiials that the ideological indoctrination of recruites would be an internal matter of the JKLF in which the ISI would not interfere. The JKLF was to rrecruit militantss in Indian administered Kashmir,bring them across the Line of Control(LoC) and deliver them to the ISI for training. Besides trainingthe ISI as also to provide weapons and logistical suppor to faciliate the launch of those militants in Indian administeed Kasmir to spark an insurgency.
Khan says that he went aheafd with the deal because the JKLF was told that General Zia supported an independenty Kashmir. "I remember that Zia had once said he wanted Kashmir to be a member of the Organisation ofIslamic Conference,which clearly meant an independent Kashmir. So I went ahead with the deal," he writes. According to Khan, another reason why the JKLF accepted the ISI's offer was the failure of the group's predecessor, the Jammu Kashmir National Liberation Front(JKNLF) to start an insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir during the 60s and 70s due to a lack of "external support".
Khan claims that the then ISI chief Genenral Akhtar Abdur Rehman had assured the JKLF that the agency would not terfere in its ideology or organisatiiional matters. Khan himself was assured by the ISI.'s Brigadier Farooq that the agency wouldlend unconditional support to the JKLF as directed by Genenral ZIa. It was also agreed in principle that the JKLF leaders "engaged on the political anddiplomatic front" would not accept money from the ISI. "It was a gentlemen's agreement, a verbal agreement",explains Khan.
Once the deal had been struck, the JKLF started bringing across young men from Indian-administered Kashmir into Azad Jammuu and Kashmir (AJK) in 1988. Thefirst batch of eight boys from the indian side reached Muzaffarabad, the capital of the AJK, in February.
They included Abdul HameedSheikh, Hilal Ahmed Baig, Waheed Ahmed, Peer Ali Mohammad Ghulam Mohammad Gojri, Captain Abdul Rasheed, Manzoor Ahmed Khan andJaved Ahmed. They were provided with weapons andimparted training by the ISI. Once trained, the boys were sent back to India with instructions not to take any initiative on thei own and instead wait for a green signal from JKLF leaders based in the AJK. Khan further reveals that three sepratist leaders Mohanned Afzal, Ghulam Hassan Lone and GHulam Nabi Butt weresummoned to the AJK for consultations. After lengthy deliberations they were asked to start an armed campaign on July 13,1988. But the campaign could not begin before July 31 that year, when bomb blasts rocked the Amar Singh club and the central post and telegraph office in Srinagar.
Although there were no casualties, the JKLF declared war against India. Khan desclosed that these seminal bomb attackes were conducted by sixJKLF militants, Humayun Azad, Javed Jehangir, Shabir Ahmed Guru, Arshad Kola, Ghulam Qadir and Mohammad Rafiq. THe insurgency sent an endless stream of Kashmiri youth pouring across the LoC into the AJK to acquire military training andweapons. But in spite of the sccessof he plan, the marriage between theISI and theJKLF couldnot last for more than a year. Khan writes that the JKLF parted ways with theISI in the early 90s when the intelligence agency idicated that it would prefer to have an ISI official attending JKLF organisational meetings in the capacity of an observer. This request cvam at a time when pro-Pakistan militants with experience in guella war fare had become available in large numbers from Afghanistan following the withdrawal ofSoviet troops. For most part, these miltants were keen to plune into action in Kashmir. Within Kashmir, new radical groups alsobegamn to surface. In fact, the JKLF was graduaalysidelines and ultimately became thepunching bag for pro-Pakistan militants on one side and Indian troops on onthe other. The nationalists' struggle for an independent Kashmir was replaced by the cause of Islamic militants who wanted Kashmr tp necome a part ofPakistan.
As Islambad's attitude towards the JKLF became lukewarm,Khan says he tried to seek an audience with the then Prime MinisterBenazir Bhutto. He believes that his attempt failed "because the ISI opposed the idea". While speaking in Srinagar recently, Yasin Malik,another JKLF leader,pointed out that General Mirza Aslam Beg , the Pakistani Chief ofArmy Staff at that time "left (JKLF) on the streets of Pakistan". Khan writes that once the JKLF was left with no choice, its leaders contacted Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, a Pakistani politicuan ofKashmiri origin whois currently the federal minister ofr information and broadcasting. Sheikh Rashid arranged for the "lodging andboadding of JKLF militants",reports Khan. Since Bhutto was not happy with this development, she ordered the ISI to clip the wings of the JKLF. Of course, the intelligence agency complied because it was already annoyed with the organisation.
Furthr elaborating on this incident, Khan claims thatBhtto was probably displeased with theJKLF because the ISI had 'misinformed" her that the organisation was colluding with Pakistan Muslim League leaders Nawaz Sharif and Sheikh Rashid to hatch a conspiacy against her government. The Prime Minister even voiced these suspicionsduring her visit to Muzaffabad in March 1990,writes Khan.
In 1994, the JKLF split into two factions when its field commander in Indian administered Kashmir Yasin Malik reliquishee militancy in favour of a non-violent struggle. Khan himself waited until 2003 to renouce militancy, although his influence over field cadres had signed a reunification deral when Malik arrived in Pakistan as part of an All Partiess Hurriyat Conference delegation in June and met Han in Rawalpindi.
While the JKLF has been eclipssed by pro-Pakistan groups as as the mititant struggle is conerned, it remains the most popular political force on the Kashmiri scene. As such, the JKLF's story, as told by Khan , reveals tha deceptive role ofthe ISI in creating and demolishing organisations in accordance with its own exisgenccies rather than out of respect for the popular will.
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