Former chief of India’s spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) AS Dulat admitted that India funded Kashmiri separatists to counter ISI’s influence.
In a startling disclosure, ex-RAW chief AS Daulat revealed that India had funded pro-separatists and separatists from the India-Occupied Kashmir, in order to quell their resistance and also to avert ISI’s influence in the region.
He said that Indian intelligence agencies over the years often paid separatists along with mainstream politicians and political parties in Indian-held Kashmir. The former RAW chief was speaking to an Indian new channel ahead of the release of his book Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years Daulat brazenly asked, “So what’s wrong? What is there to be so shocked or scandalised by. It’s done the world over.”
He went on ahead and gave a shameless justification for bribing separatists and politicians by stating,”Corrupting someone with money is more ethical and smarter than killing him.” He defended the use of money in Kashmir, saying that it was done in teh hope of engaging separatists.
He also named the famous pro Pakistan separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and revealed that India had on quite a few occasion paid for his medical expenses, general upkeep and air fares. He also revealed that he was in touch with Hizbul Mujahideen leader Syed Salahuddin, who was ready to leave Pakistan and return to India.
The comments come in light of tense relations between India and Pakistan. The two nuclear armed nations have been in a confrontational mode and issuing statements against each other ever since the Ismaili bus attack and APS massacres took place in Pakistan.
Ever since the attacks took place, Pakistan’s military as well as civilian leadership has openly blamed Indian intelligence agency RAW for their involvement in terrorism.
