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Journalism of Courage
SRINAGAR, JAN 27: The new strategy of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) seems to be to indoctrine the youth of the Valley in a Taliban way. To accomplish their goals, they are pumping in large quantities of incriminating material into the Valley, in bookish form, to evade it from getting into the hands of security forces. These books are embedded with anti-Hindu speeches that can easily brainwash the minds of youngsters.
Nearly 1,200 anti-India books, authored by a slain Pakistani militant and printed in Deoband in Uttar Pradesh, were seized by the SOG, Srinagar, in a raid on the premises of a transport company, Shakti Motors.
The seizure of the “venomous” books followed the arrest of the self-styled divisional commander of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen for Kupwara and Baramulla, Abdul Qayoom Sheikh, resident of Achabal, Sopore. One pistol, one magazine and rounds were recovered from Sheikh.
What has sent the alarm bells ringing in the security set-up here is the printing of the books withinIndia. “Deoband seems to be turning into a religious centre for the HUM in India because Sheikh, who is a religious preacher, took his training from Deoband,” a top police officer said.
The book, which is divided into two parts, was authored in Urdu by Saifullah Chitrali, resident of Chitral in the North West Frontier Province. Saifullah was the deputy chief and chief coordinator of the HUM for Jammu and Kashmir and was recently killed by SOG, Srinagar, in an encounter near Pattan.
The book spews venom against the Indian security forces by making wild allegations of rapes and atrocities. It also greatly exaggerates figures of casualties suffered by Indian forces and fosters the spirit of `Jehad‘. It was meant for distribution among the HUM cadres, the police officer said. The religious book containing venomous speeches and lectures are filled with such words that can easily infuriate the sentiments of an ordinary Kashmiri youth.
“Such tactics had led Pakistan to create a Taliban to fight a warthere. Now they are adopting the same pattern here. They also understand that it is easy to mould at a young age, as afterwards he becomes intelligent enough to differentiate between propaganda and reality,” said an SOG officer.
The recent arrest of some youths by the Army and BSF during the past few months points to the ISI designs. “Some of the boys are lured for money but many others are committed enough,” said a senior BSF official.
Earlier also, police recovered pamphlets and other incriminating material from militants which were smuggled into the state with a purpose to indoctrine the minds of the youth so that they easily obey the diktats of their mentors. In the past, the Army has recovered diaries from the pockets of slain militants that show some of the foreign militants trying to learn the Hindi language so that they can cheat the forces masquerading as tourists by making use of the language.
This is for the first time in the nine years of militancy that such a large consignment ofincriminating material has been recovered. Intelligence officers had already warned the security agencies about the supply of such material to the preachers in other districts who under the garb of `madrasas‘ are supplying this material to youngsters.
