Substantiating what JKLF chief Yasin Malik had said in Pakistan before retracting, a former militant has claimed that Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid’s mansion in Rawalpindi was used as a ‘‘guest-house’’ for Kashmiri militant recruits between 1987 and 1992.Abdul Ahad Waza, one of the first Kashmiris to go across the LoC for arms training, has also claimed that then Pakistani military ruler Zia ul Haq had signed a ‘‘memorandum of understanding’’ with him for recruiting Kashmiris to start militancy in J-K.Waza has told a Jammu-based newspaper that Rashid’s mansion functioned as a ‘‘transit camp’’ for these JKLF militants and was guarded by ‘‘men of Pakistani Army in civvies’’.JKLF trainees were lodged at Sheikh Rashid’s ‘‘safe-house’’, trained at Kachgari, given guns and grenades, and accommodation’’, he has been quoted as saying. Waza has said that when he went across the LoC in 1988, he was lodged in the same house with other members of his group. — Agencies
