Pakistan Exploiting ‘Religious Fault Lines’ To Keep Terrorism Alive In J&K: Officials

The official said the “neighbour” has been and still remains the “biggest menacing factor" that has “pulled back Kashmir and its people”.

(Representative Image/ Getty)

New Delhi: The officials in New Delhi on Sunday said Pakistan is again employing the tactics of brainwashing the local youth in the name of religion and exploiting the “religious fault lines that exist within India” to keep terrorism alive in Jammu and Kashmir.

“Pakistan is definitely changing its subversion narrative, giving it a religious tone not only to manipulate the minds of the youth in the Valley but also to exploit the religious fault lines that exist within India,” PTI quoted an official as saying.

The official said the “neighbour” has been and still remains the “biggest menacing factor" that has “pulled back Kashmir and its people”.

“Having vitiated and radicalised the Sufi soul of the Valley for the last three decades to meet its nefarious design, the masters of destruction across the border now believe that the time is ripe to infuse religious schism into the mix and champion itself (Pakistan) as the saviour of religion,” the official added.

The change in Islamabad’s tactics, as per the officials, should also be seen in the light of the Asian neighbour’s desperate attempt to get out of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Grey List.

The officials said the terror movement, initiated by Pakistan’s spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) under the garb of calls of ‘Azadi’ and right to self-determination, has slowly and steadily transformed into a low-intensity conflict that today stands on the pillars of “religion and radicalisation”.

The officials said the ISI having seen its failure in mobilising locals, especially after separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s death, believes religion holds the key to its next move in Kashmir.

The officials added analysis of the recent intercepts and questioning of the arrested terrorists show the ISI and others in Pakistan are desperate to polarise the local population in Jammu and Kashmir and generate dissent against the state in the name of religion.

The officials further said the changing contours of Islamabad’s narrative in Kashmir are the outcome of the fact that its rhetoric of the right to self-determination has failed.

The propaganda machinery being run from across the border, the officials added, has realised the futility of the call for “freedom movement and resistance against the so-called occupational forces”.

(With inputs from PTI)