Washington: India fears "another brutal summer" lies ahead for Jammu and Kashmir
this year because of preparations in Pakistan to infiltrate more terrorists into the
state, Indian Ambassador to the US Lalit Mansingh has said.
"Close to a 100 training camps have been spotted across the line of control (LoC),
holding some 3,000 trained terrorists, destined for being sent to India. An
additional 1,500 are already on the LoC, waiting to slip across, with the active
assistance of the Pakistan armed forces," Mansingh said at a conference on India-US
relations at the University of California, Los Angeles, during the weekend.
He said Pakistan was currently the epicentre of international terrorism that was
particularly directed against India, adding the Taleban and al-Qaida, displaced from
Afghanistan, were regrouping in Pakistan.
"Terrorist leaders in Pakistan have been released from detention and are being
freely allowed to mobilise funds for 'jihad'. Most importantly, the Pakistani
President has failed to fulfil his own solemn commitment made to the US to put a
complete end to terrorist infiltration across the border and LoC into India."
The madrasas in Pakistan, said Mansingh, continued to double up as seminaries to
terrorist forces.
Close to one million young men in Pakistan, currently enrolled in 15,000 madrasas,
would be the soldiers of 'jihad' tomorrow. The world has paid scant attention to the
danger that these "terrorist factories" pose for those who cherish Democracy and
freedom.
The events of September 1, 2001, said Mansingh, did not represent the beginning of
terrorism.
September 11, however, did bring about the recognition that terrorism was a global
phenomenon and, therefore, called for a global response.
He said in the global war against terrorism, there must be no distinction between
terrorism that could be tolerated and that which could not, of terrorism directed
against the West and that directed against others, of one being the product of evil
and the latter requiring resolution of its "root causes".
The campaign against terrorism would succeed "only if we are united in our
conviction that terrorism can never be allowed to become an instrument of political
negotiation", he said.
PTI
