It’s official now; Kashmir’s so-called ‘Tahreek’ is terrorism!

Dost Khan

JAMMU: Now the US has set the ball rolling in Indian court. By designating Mohammed Yousf Shah alias Syed Sallah-ud-Din of Soibugh, Badgam district of Kashmir, now under the cover of Pakistan and its ISI, as global terrorist, New Delhi is under an obligation to meet the challenge. The declaration is symbolic but significant. By describing the United Jihad Council Chief as International Terrorist, the US has turned the entire so-called Azadi struggle in Kashmir as a campaign of terror. This should not send right signals only to separatists of the Valley but their apologists in the PDP, NC and Congress as well, who are constantly vying for dialogue with the Hurriyat, essentially an over-ground face of the UJC.
The US declaration has put an added onus on the Indian state. Now it has to act against Sallah-ud-Din and its offshoots in the Valley besides his support-base in Hurriyat.
Syed Sallah-ud-Din is as bad a terrorist as Osama bin Laden, who was dragged dead from his rat-hole by the US SEAL from the close vicinity of Pakistan Army garrison.
Syed Sallah-ud-Din and his headquarters is stationed in Pak-occupied- Kashmir-a lawful territory of the Indian state. And, by virtue of this legal standing, India is within its rights to carry out operations to fish out anti-national elements, who are not only radicalised but continue to be die hard terrorists. This is the place which gives shelter to hundreds of fugitives of the so-called United Jihad Council, a military wing of Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s Jamaat-e-Islami. This is the territory where indoctrinated radical youth, lured from Kashmir and the riffraff from Pakistan and the neigbhouring Afghanistan, are being imparted training. This is the destination for inimical elements of Pakistan to launch a full-throttled proxy and propaganda war against India with a sinister design of annexing Kashmir. The agenda has upgraded over the years and the target line now crosses beyond the borders of J&K. Terrorism has spread its tentacles in the entire country.
How long will India utilize diplomatic channels and negotiation tables to make Pakistan rein in terror regime, forgetting that it is the nation that has actually created these beasts against humanity? Pakistan has been equating terrorism as Jihad-a holy war and, therefore, expecting miracle from this rogue nation will be like living in fools’ world. Islamabad knows the language which India has never tried to learn. Remember, how the US Navy SEAL Team Six killed Osama bin Laden in his Abbetobad hideout in 2011. The same team struck again in Tripoli in October 2013 and captured al-Qaeda leader Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, known by his alias Anas al-Libi, carrying a bounty of $ 5 million on his head for the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The bounty is half of the amount Hafiz Saeed; the Mumbai attacks mastermind is carrying.
Can India do what the US has been doing to track down its enemies wherever they are in the world? Can we ever think of launching an operation to pull out the two designated global terrorists Hafiz Saeed and Syed Sallahudin? Can we make use of our elite commandos to fix the enemies of nation wherever they are in Pakistan? If they can’t do it there, let they do it in PoK, our rightful territory, which they have converted into a terror haven. India will have to seriously explore these options, if this nation is to grow as a self-respecting and confident country that cannot afford to blame a tiny and coward country like Pakistan for all the ills. New Delhi must get into vibrant mode in its campaign against the most wanted terrorists of the world. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on record having stated in the US, a day ahead of meeting President Donald Trump, that nobody in the world can stop India from tackling its enemies wherever they are. He has cited the September 2016 surgical strikes, saying that Indian action was ethical that raised no eyebrow anywhere in the world. Similarly, by neutrilising Syed Sallah-ud-Din and his cadre, wherever they are, the world is not going to ask questions. India has only to firm its resolve to take on the enemies of the nation within and outside. That is the mandate of the nation to Prime Minister Modi, which they gave in 2014.