Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief and wanted terrorist Hafiz Saeed has asked the Pakistani military to send troops to Jammu and Kashmir to teach India a lesson. This seems to be a considerable step-down for the man on whose head the United States has a $10-million bounty, because less than a month earlier he had promised his "sister" and Kashmiri separatist leader Asiya Andrabi he was coming to Kashmir.
Pakistani media quoted Saeed, who India says planned the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks in which 164 people were killed, as urging Pakistani Army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif to send troops to Kashmir.
Saeed reportedly said in Lahore on Tuesday: "This time the people in Kashmir are on streets. This protest has become a mass movement. All groups in Kashmir have united. All the wings of the Hurriyat have become one. The Muttahida Jihad Council and all other groups have come on to the same platform. Those who have died in Kashmir, their deaths will not be in vain."
Observers are seeing this as a clear sign of decreasing bravado from a man who had said nearly a month ago: "My sister Asiya Andrabi called me over the phone and cried for 15 minutes. She asked me: 'Brother, where are you?' Now, I am telling my sister Asiya, we are coming."
The current situation of unrest in Jammu and Kashmir follows the death of self-styled Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, who Saeed claimed had talked to him before being killed by the Indian Army in July. Communication lines have suspended several times in the state since then, and people have been killed in some places while attacking the Indian Army.
During the same address in which he had spoken of coming to India, Saeed had also said India should accept the four-point solution to the Kashmir issue proposed by separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, else "all decisions after that would be taken on the field." Hafiz had seemed to be hinting at war with India if the Geelani framework was not accepted. However, his latest statement seems to indicate that he wants the Pakistani Army to fight that war, at a time when India is raising the issue of the Pakistani military's atrocities in Balochistan.
