Daily times, April 29, 2007
‘Safe passage’ for Kashmir militants being considered: Sardar Qayyum
By Iftikhar Gilani
NEW DELHI: Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan, former prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, has claimed here that the governments of India and Pakistan are considering granting “safe passage” to foreign militants active in Indian-held Kashmir.
“The proposal has been discussed for sometime now and I hope an agreement comes through as soon as possible,” he said while delivering a lecture at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a think-tank.
Earlier, speaking to the media, Khan appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to grant “general amnesty” to all militants and withdraw all cases against them. Khan said youths from several countries were lured by militant groups to join their ranks and were now holed up in Pakistan, AJK, or IHK. They want to return to their own countries, he said.
Defending Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Khan said it had no political motives. “They are generally misunderstood and have also stopped their activities in Pakistan,” he said, adding that their cadres on the Indian side of Kashmir should be given “safe passage” to return to their homes. He said, “President Pervez Musharraf has dismantled all camps in Pakistan as well as in AJK.” He offered to take a team of Indian intellectuals and journalists to AJK to see the situation there for themselves.
Khan rejected the view that AJK lacked constitutional powers and was way behind IHK in terms of development and progress.
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