- NEW DELHI (IANS) -- Yet another
twist has been added to the endemic hostility between India and Pakistan
with the arrest of two Kashmiris for allegedly receiving funds from a senior
Pakistani diplomat here.
-
- Pakistan angrily rejected the charge, particularly that
its acting high commissioner, Jalil Abbas Jilani, had personally handed
over Rs. 370,000 to a woman, Anjum Zamruda Habib, said to be an activist
of the secessionist All-Party Hurriyat Conference.
-
- Police also arrested Shabbir Ahmed Dar, the New Delhi-based
Hurriyat spokesman and in charge of the Kashmir Awareness Bureau, from
Malviya Nagar in south Delhi and recovered Rs.200,000 from the bureau office.
-
- The latest spat between the two countries, who were pulled
back from the brink of war only last year by international diplomacy, came
just a fortnight after the tit-for-tat expulsions of four diplomats and
embassy staff from each other's missions.
-
- Sudhir Vyas, India's acting high commissioner in Islamabad,
was summoned to the Pakistani foreign office and delivered a strong protest
over what it called "ridiculous and baseless allegations" against
its acting high commissioner.
-
- A statement by the Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
said Islamabad was concerned over the "ongoing campaign of vilification"
which it saw as "part of a strategy by the BJP government to mislead
the Indian public opinion to whip up anti-Pakistan hysteria for electoral
gains."
-
- The charges filed by Delhi Police before a city court
Friday against the two people, who were remanded in police custody for
ten days, also named Hurriyat chairman and Jilani, who was accused of funding
Kashmiri terrorist groups on the basis of the Habib's statement.
-
- Both Habib and Dar have been charged under the Prevention
of Terrorism Act (POTA), which carries a minimum sentence of three years'
imprisonment and a maximum of life imprisonment or death.
-
- Diplomatic observers said the police could not question
the diplomat as he enjoyed diplomatic immunity, but New Delhi could ask
Islamabad to withdraw him. But that would certainly invite a retaliatory
action by Islamabad, they said.
-
- New Delhi had recalled its envoy from Islamabad following
the terror attack on Indian Parliament in December 2001, blamed on Pakistan-based
militant outfits. India asked Islamabad to withdraw its high commissioner
a few months later.
-
- The two countries also suspended all direct links between
them by air, road and rail.
-
- India's Minister of State for Home Affairs I.D. Swami
said the government would decide its course of action once the investigations
into the case were completed.
-
- "We are waiting for investigations to be completed.
Then the home ministry and MEA (Ministry of External Affairs) will take
it up," he said. "Everybody knows that they (Pakistani high commission
officials here) fund terrorist groups."
-
- Indian officials scoffed at Pakistani denials. "For
ten years they have denied involvement in terrorist activities (in India).
Now the fact is for everyone to see," a senior official said.
-
- Police said the arrested woman, said to be a member of
Khwatin-e-Markaz, a constituent of the APHC, was nabbed with the money
from a park near the Pakistani high commission.
-
- They alleged that she had collected the money from "Pakistani
Deputy High Commissioner Jalil Abbas Jilani."
-
- Indian intelligence officials said they had suspected
for months that funds were being channelled to anti-India groups in Kashmir
through the high commission but were reluctant to act because of diplomatic
sensitivities.
-
- Indian authorities have alleged in the past that leaders
of groups aligned to the Hurriyat receive substantial amounts of funds
from Pakistan regularly.
-
- Hurriyat chairman Abdul Ghani Bhat said Thursday's arrests
"would only harden attitudes" in and delay the resolution of
the Kashmir problem.
-
- "The Indian government is mounting pressure on us
so that we are forced to close down our New Delhi office. We are seriously
thinking on these lines," he said.
-
- Bhat also urged New Delhi-based ambassadors to "focus
their attention towards the mounting pressure the government is using to
muzzle the voice of freedom loving Kashmiris".
-
-
-
- Copyright © 2001 IANS India Private Limited. All
rights Reserved.
|
