SRINAGAR: The banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), blamed for the Mumbai attacks that killed 179 people, said yesterday for the first time that armed struggle was not the only way to deal with Kashmir.
The Pakistan-based Islamist group has claimed responsibility for scores of suicide attacks on security forces in its fight against Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan region.
“We don’t see the armed struggle as the only way to achieve our goal, if the world listens to our cries and plays its role in resolving the Kashmir issue,” Abdullah Ghaznavi, a spokesman for Lashkar-e-Taiba, said in a statement.
Tensions flared between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan after the attacks, as India demanded its neighbor clamp down on militants operating from its soil.
India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the attacks must have had the support of official agencies in Pakistan, a charge which Pakistan strongly denies. India blames the LeT for the three-day assault on Mumbai in November. The group has denied responsibility.
Islamabad has detained scores of members of the LeT and an affiliated Islamic charity, but India wants Pakistan to dismantle what it calls the “infrastructure of terrorism.”
“We just want freedom and if it comes peacefully we will welcome it. Once the issue is resolved there will be no need to keep fighting,” Ghaznavi said. Indian Kashmir, the focus of two wars between India and Pakistan, has been hit by a separatist revolt against Indian rule since 1989 in which tens of thousands have died, and which has been backed by Pakistan-based militants. Violence involving Indian troops and separatist guerrillas has declined significantly since.
New Delhi has put a “pause” on that dialogue amid the diplomatic fallout of the Mumbai attacks. Lashkar-e-Taiba, which translates as “the army of the pure,” says it is not associated with Islamist militant groups operating globally, and denies any links to the Pakistan government.
“The world did not respond to our peaceful calls for resolution of the Kashmir issue for almost 40 years and then we had no choice to take arms for our freedom,” Ghaznavi said.
