Times of India : India protests Pak leader's jehad call for Kashmir's 'freedom'

India protests Pak leader's jehad call for Kashmir's 'freedom'

September 6, 2007

NEW DELHI: External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday informed Parliament that India had protested against the unwarranted remarks of Pakistani Parliamentary Secretary for Defence, Major (retd) Sayed Tanvir Hussain, advocating jehad for the "freedom" of Kashmir.

In response to a question in the Lok Sabha, Mukherjee said the government was aware of Hussain's remarks in the National Assembly of Pakistan, and the ''Indian High Commission in Islamabad has protested to Pakistan at this gratuitous attack on India.''

Participating in a debate on Pakistan's foreign policy in the National Assembly last month, Hussain had said Pakistan could ''liberate'' Kashmir with jehad in six months. He exhorted the government to open the way to Kashmir for jehadi organisations.

Hussain — who incidentally is singer Mallika Pukhraj's son — had also called for a jehad against the US for undermining Pakistani interests and working with India to create an ''independent'' Kashmir.

While the US had immediately reacted to Hussain's remarks with its Islamabad embassy spokeswoman Elizabeth Colton calling it ''outrageous and reprehensible,'' there was no such immediate reaction from India.

Hussain — who had said that Quranic concepts should be allowed to guide foreign policy in the case of Kashmir — found support from the members of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal. Hussain had said that talks were never going to settle the issue as he saw an US-India conspiracy to make the region autonomous.