The recent murderous attack on a tourist couple in the Pahalgam area of South Kashmir’s Anantnag district has one once again exposed the sordid underbelly of terrorism in J&K, which the Islamabad and its proxies based in Kashmir Valley have unsuccessfully been trying to glamorise as an “armed struggle.” Coming at a time when normalcy is returning to J&K, this reprehensible incident has also raised serious questions regarding the real motives of those comfortably sitting across the Line of Control [LoC] and masterminding such senseless acts of violence.

For more than three decades, the hapless people of J&K have been used as cannon fodder by the Pakistan army in its proxy war against India and this observation isn’t wild speculation but an undeniable fact. Hasn’t Syed Salahuddin who heads the Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist group as well as the United Jihad Council [a conglomeration of jihadist terrorist groups sponsored by Pakistan army’s spy agency Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) aimed at achieving J&K’s merger with Pakistan] himself admitted that “We are fighting Pakistan’s war in Kashmir”? Emphasis added.

Hence, it’s time the people of Kashmir realised the true nature of Pakistan’s more than three decades old crafty manoeuvring in J&K, because as they say, those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it. The ones who were big enough to understand things when terrorism erupted in Kashmir during the late eighties-early nineties would recall that the initial aim of the ISI controlled ‘armed struggle’ led by Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front [JKLF] here was ‘azadi’ [independence].

The elders would also recall that since a call for independence in J&K could arouse similar sentiments in Pakistan occupied J&K [PoJK], ISI created a new terrorist group named Hizbul Mujahideen [HM], which rejected ‘azadi’ and instead aggressively espoused J&K’s merger with Pakistan. What followed was an unprecedented bloody purge of JKLF by HM carried out on orders of ISI. Reflecting on the same, Pakistan based JKLF........

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