Impact on India continues....

The report revealed that many of these groups continued to draw funds from official quarters, despite the ban on terrorist fundraising and finances. Small organisations such as Tehrik-eMujahideen, Jamiat-e-Mujahideen, Al Fatah, Al Jihad, Tehrik-eJihad, Islamic Front, etc, were receiving between Rs. 400,000 and

700,000 a month, whereas larger organisations such as HM, LeT,

the JeM and others received between two and three million rupees a month. This was in addition to funds that were paid for logistics, communications, equipment, weapons, and explosives, as also food and trekking kits for the thousands of militants, guides and porters who infiltrate into Kashmir every year.

In April 2008, a CIA-backed policy research group, Stratfor, quoting Dawn, said members of Kashmiri terrorist groups like

HuM, al Badr and JeM were “setting up new offices, changing their names, putting up flags and posters, holding large rallies, and delivering sermons in mosques to publicise the groups’ activities.” HuM relocated itself from Islamabad to the outskirts of Rawalpindi and called itself Ansar-ul Ummah. These developments, Stratfor said, could mean “ISI return to commissioning attacks in Kashmir,” part of a new phase in its militant proxy saga.

These groups have remained restrained in their targeting of Kashmir in the recent past largely because of the presence of the US and other Western troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The ISI was

also not keen on re-activating these groups fearing sanctions from the international community. With the western forces and interest dwindling in the next few years, ISI is more than likely to revert to

its earlier Kashmir Jihad agenda.

To be continued...