-
Title: Logistics of Pakistan's
Proxy War
Author: Varsha Bhosle
Publication: Rediff
on Net
Date: November 22, 1999
Last week, a report in
The Times of India stated that, following the Lashkar-e-Toiba attack on
Badami Bagh Cantonment, the army banned all civilian vehicular traffic
in the area: Residents, "particularly children returning from their schools,"
"patients bound for the maternity hospitals in the zone," "the common people,"
senior bureaucrats, the CM, all were denied entry...
Never mind the melodrama;
what are the facts? One, restrictions have been placed on the movement
of only trucks and buses, and only between 5 pm and 8 am. Two, even army
heavy vehicles are not permitted on that stretch of road during this time.
Three, there's no inconvenience to "the common man" on a scooter, in a
car or an auto. Four, Dr Abdullah wasn't at any point stopped by anyone
in the area. Five, truckers have an equally good alternate route via Pantha
Chowk...
Such stories emanate
from Srinagar itself -- national media use local stringers for information.
ToI could have checked with the army about the traffic restrictions, but,
the army... can it be believed? 'Course not; only journalists can be trusted.
And how reliable is the species? Take the Lashkar attack: Contrary to popular
belief, the militants did not enter through the high-security main gate;
they scaled the wall behind the PR office -- the only soft spot in the
entire cantonment. How did the militants zero in on it...? Let me ask you:
Which group of people haunted Major Purushottam's office...? That there's
a fifth column working against Indian security, I've no doubt. That certain
local media is cozy with militants and under suspicion, *is* a fact. That
the editors in Delhi are prime dorks, is another dismal reality.
I ask again: What is
the Indian Army up against? Recently, General Ved Malik spoke of an increase
in Pakistani support to the terrorists active in J&K since Kargil.
So also, Governor G C Saxena stated that local militants are playing a
subordinate role while foreign mercenaries are in control; that the degree
of Pakistan's involvement has increased and a "totally proxy war" is being
waged by Pakistan: "Our security forces are fighting a war under civilian
law and performing their difficult task with minimum civilian casualties."
About 80% of the 4,000
militants active in J&K are from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sudan, the
majority of them belonging to the ISI-sponsored Fidayeen and Lashkar suicide
squads. Even so, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the All-Party Hurriyat
Conference, demands that Prime Minister Vajpayee liberate detained Hurriyat
leaders and "discipline the army." He says, "We have to run our offices
in Srinagar, Delhi and Jammu and also finance the litigation costs of the
people involved in the struggle... We are getting money from agencies and
people who are convinced and committed to our cause.
The pan-Islamic group
which believes in the concept of universal Islamic brotherhood is also
helping us." In short, the Mirwaiz admits to receiving foreign funds for
militancy...
Let's take a look at
the logistics of this proxy war, one launched by Pakistan as Operation
Topac in 1988. Regardless of international pressures, this renegade State
has doggedly pursued its single-point agenda of keeping the wound festering
in Kashmir by administering liberal doses of anti-India rhetoric; indoctrinating
susceptible youth with the idea of an inevitable jehad; training, arming
and infiltrating terrorists; and financing the entire gamut of militancy
in J&K. In 1993, Brig (retd) Imtiaz, head of the ISI's political section,
developed "K-2", a long-term programme aimed at unifying and coordinating
the Kashmiri and Sikh subversion efforts by bringing under one umbrella
Sikh and Kashmiri extremists and Muslim zealots.
Such business requires
*major* funding. Money is being raised abroad for the Kashmir "cause" and
redirected to militant leaders on both sides of the LoC. In June, British
security agencies deposed before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission
that Islamic mercenary groups had carried out a large-scale recruitment
drive among young Muslims in the UK, who had later been sent to fight in
J&K, and that the Lashkar, Jamaat-e-Islami, Harkat-ul-Ansar and Hizbul
Mujahideen were raising funds -- in the UK -- towards wresting J&K
from India. Besides this, and the forcible fund-collection by way of zakaat
(the Muslim religious tax amounting to 2.5% of one's income) from the people
in J&K and PoK, separatist orgs are pumping in massive amounts of cash
through front organisations in the Valley.
The ISI, Jamaat, United
Jehad Council, Markaz-ul-Dawah-al-Irshad and APHC are the main organisations
involved in raising funds. Apart from Hurriyat, which is the chief conduit
for money-laundering, a Srinagar-based memorial trust -- a front of Jamaat
-- is being used to channel funds from abroad. Markaz, with its office
in Lahore, is another front-line org which solicits donations from the
public. People's Conference, a political facade with links to Al Barq,
is headed by Abdul Ghani Lone, who is now a member of the executive council
of APHC, and has been an education minister in the Congress government.
Syed Salahuddin, the "supreme commander" of Hizbul, is presently based
in Muzaffarabad, PoK.
The next important source
for funds is through the sale of illegal drugs, which Pakistani cottage-industry's
patron saint is the ISI. As per a recent United Nations Drugs Control Programme
report, about $ 2.5 billion is the annual income that accrues to the ISI
from the sale of narcotics. Thus, by a conservative estimate, even if 5%
to 10% of this amount is used for funding the militancy in J&K, the
amount works out to a whopping $ 125 million to $ 250 million each year.
Hawala transactions from
various countries is another crucial source. On November 14, the Special
Operations Group of J&K police busted one such racket when it arrested
Imtiaz Ahmed Bhat and Nisar Ahmed Atanger and recovered Rs 700,000 from
them. Imtiaz is the son of an employee of the Srinagar Development Authority,
and Nisar's father is the branch manager in the J&K Bank at Baramulla.
Superintendent of Police (Operations) Manohar Singh told Greater Kashmir
that Nisar had been engaged in channeling funds for the past ten years
and had handled Rs 90 crore. Earlier, a hawala racket involving Rs 172
crore had been busted, out of which barely Rs 500,000 were recovered.
Other significant sources
include:
* Printing of fake currency
notes, mainly by the Jehad Council's printing press in Muzaffarabad, PoK.
In Srinagar, Manohar Singh unearthed a racket under which Rs 6,500,000
had been distributed. (Ironically, the families of slain militants are
compensated by the ISI with counterfeit notes.)
* Collection of donations
in Middle Eastern and European countries under the name of "Jehad Fund."
* Extortion from traders,
contractors and affluent people.
* Indirect funding --
by providing arms, ammunition, equipment, rations and clothing to militants
prior to dispatching them to India, and sustaining them therein.
I've assembled this data
from media accounts, from reports within the public domain, information
from Kashmir old-hands, and inputs from ex-militants and dissenters I met
in Srinagar. From the transactions listed below, you can get an idea of
the quantum of funds being pumped in by the ISI (these are based only on
transactions for which confirmed details are available). But this is just
the tip of the iceberg -- more are the dealings that go undetected, like
"donations" and hawala:
|
Yr/Mnth
|
Rounded-off
|
Transaction amount,
in Rs.
|
|
1996
|
Rs. 5,00,000
|
Bank draft sent
for People's Conference and APHC
|
| |
Rs. 5,50,738
|
Bank draft drawn
on a foreign bank in London
|
| |
Rs 10,50,738
($24,436)
|
|
|
1997
|
Rs 7,039,473 ($163,709)
|
Amount for Shia
militant outfits in the valley
|
|
1998
|
|
|
|
January
|
Rs. 3,91,733
|
Cash channeled from
abroad via a Srinagar-based trust
|
|
January
|
Rs. 75,00,000
|
Paid by ISI to militant
orgs for terrorist activities
|
|
January
|
Rs. 20,00,000
|
-do-
|
|
February
|
Rs. 85,00,000
|
Paid by ISI to Hizbul
Mujahideen for distribution to militants
|
|
March
|
Rs. 25,00,000
|
Paid by Syed Salahuddin
to activists based in Baramulla
|
|
March
|
Rs. 60,00,000
|
Paid by Salahuddin
to activists through a Delhi-based courier
|
|
June
|
Rs. 1,00,00,000
|
Paid by ISI to Hizbul
for families of
|
|
June
|
Rs. 50,00,000
|
-do-
|
|
August
|
Rs. 40,00,000
|
Paid by ISI to Lashkar
to intensify militant activities
|
|
October
|
Rs. 1,70,00,000
|
Paid by ISI to Hizbul
as arrears, and for purchase of winter clothing
|
|
November
|
Rs. 15,40,000
|
Paid by ISI to fourdivisional
commanders of Hizbul outfits
|
|
December
|
Rs. 50,00,000
|
Paid by Syed Salahuddin
to valley-based militants
|
|
Total
|
Rs 69,431,733
($1,614,691)
|
|
|
1999
|
|
|
Junuary
- August
|
Rs. 96,20,000
|
Paid by Syed Salahuddin
to his 'deputy supreme commander' as operation money
|
|
September
|
Rs. 10,30,000
|
-do-
|
|
Total
|
Rs 1,06,50,000
($247,674)
|
|
That's the magnitude
of the funding. However, it's more important to understand how the ISI
uses all these millions to seduce local youth and foreign mercenaries to
take up arms for the "jehad" in Kashmir. Such are the details of payments
made to militants and their sympathisers:
Local Militant
Rs 2,500 to Rs 5,000 ($
Foreign Militant
Rs 5,000 to Rs 8,000 ($116 to $ 186) per month
Deceased militant's
kin Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,000
($35 to $ 70) per month
Militancy-affected families
Rs 50,000 to Rs 200,000 ($ 1,163 to $ 4,651)
Guides
Rs 30,000 to Rs 50,000 ($ 698 to $1,163)
Porters
Rs 7,500 ($ 175) for ammunition box
Rs 20,000 ($ 465) 12 to 14 kgs per trip
Recruiter
Rs 5,000 to Rs 20,000 ($ 116 to $ 465) one time
Motivator
Rs 5,000 ($ 116) per recruit
Winter Clothing
Rs 6000 ($ 140)
Grenade Throwing
Rs 150 ($ 3)
(A recruiter enlists
youths and arranges for their infiltration into India. A motivator incites
youths towards militancy and delivers them to the recruiter.)
The cost of an Indian
life annihilated by a grenade is $ 3. The cost of the life of a soldier
is higher:
Up to the rank of Major:
Rs 7,000 ($ 163)
Lieutenant Colonel:
Rs 50,000 ($ 1,163)
Brigadier and above:
Over Rs 100,000
Foreign militants get
Rs 200,000 ($ 4,651) while entering India and another Rs 500,000 ($ 11,628)
on their return home after a 2-year contract period. For such a period,
the militant earns an amount ranging from Rs 820,000 ($ 19,070) to Rs 892,000
($ 20,744) -- without even carrying out any major action... What bloody
"jehad"?! What goddamn "azaadi"?! It's just a money game being manipulated
by Pakistan!
In his recent book, Kashmir:
Unveiling the Truth, Hashim Qureshi, leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic
Party, wrote that while in Pakistan, he had been approached by top ISI
directors to " 'Get us some young people for training from the Valley so
that they could be made to fight the Indian security forces on their return'...
The funds that come in the form of donations to the public relief trust
run by Jamaat is spent in lavish lifestyles led by some Jamaat and other
militant leaders, while the younger generation is fed to the lions... Unless
the governments of US, UK and authorities in the European mainland act,
the ISI would continue to finance Islamic fundamentalism and bleed Kashmir
and its people."
>From the seizures made
by Indian security forces since 1989, we know that the ISI has supplied
arms, ammunition and equipment worth billions of dollars to mercenaries,
the total value of which is *conservatively* estimated at $ 20,801,478
(Rs 894,463,550). There are large quantities still held by ISI-sponsored
mercenaries, and more are waiting to be smuggled across the border.
After Kargil -- a fiasco
jointly attributable to Kaiser Musharraf's army and the ISI -- fund allocations
to various militant orgs have been increased to boost their sagging morale:
Organisation
Amount, in Rs/month
APHC
200,000,000 ($ 4,651,163)
Hizbul Mujahideen
10,000,000 ($ 232,558)
Harkat-ul-Ansar
4,000,000 ($ 93,023)
Al Barq
1,200,000 ($ 27,907)
Other groups
3,500,000 ($ 81,395)
Total
Rs 218,700,000
It's impossible to specify
the exact amount of money being pumped in by Pakistan to foment and sustain
militancy, but the writing on the wall is clear: The ISI is spending billions
of dollars on the proxy war in Jammu & Kashmir so as to intensify Islamic
fundamentalism in the secular Indian polity -- with the ultimate aim of
merging J&K with Pakistan itself.
November 16 was the deadline
set by the Musharraf regime for repayment of $ 4 billion loans taken from
Pakistani banks, largely by influential people, including generals. It's
difficult to imagine how a nation that is neck-deep in financial debts
can afford to spend such colossal amounts of money on fomenting terrorism
in its neighbouring countries. Surely, this is the road to a political
and economical nemesis! Certainly, it's the shortest route to Hell. For,
Musharraf's problems are bound to mount, tempting him to look for a diversion
externally...
When such are the odds
facing the country, the Indian army should not be restrained from its legitimate
security concerns by either foreign or local arm-twisting. It should NOT
be demoralised by media propaganda. As Arun Shourie, speaking at a seminar
on human rights, said, "The most important lesson for the security forces
is: Deafen yourself and win." Hear, hear! You, too, Colonel mine...
