Kashmir businessmen justify funding ultras

NEW DELHI, November 16: Even as the controversy over tea companies funding various militant groups in Assam is raging, businessmen of Jammu and Kashmir have claimed they have to pay money to militants in order to “buy peace”.The businessmen justify their act and blame the State administration “for all this mess”. “Several traders in Jammu and Kashmir are regularly forking out money to keep militants happy and run their business peacefully,” says Shoiab Khan, a handicrafts dealer from the State. “We have to make both ends meet and want peace,” he said. “We pay for the failure of the State administrtion,” a south Delhi carpet shop owner from Kashmir, requesting anonymity, said.

“Had the administration been so efficient, the menace of terrorism would never have raised its ugly head,” he said. Mehraj-ud-din, one of the trustees of Jhelum Valley Medical College, confessed during interrogation that the college paid hefty sums to militant organisations to run it smoothly.

Mehraj-ud-din had reportedly said that militants, including the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, Hizbul-Mujahideen and Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen, used to collect their share monthly from the college.