Hizb chief ready for talks with India

MUZAFFARABAD - In a significant shift from his routine anti-peace rhetoric, Pakistan-based terror amalgam United Jehad Council chief Syed Salahuddin Thursday said he was ready for a dialogue with India if talks bring “real-time results”.

“We are interested in a serious and conducive dialogue (with India) with real-time results,” Salahuddin, who is among India’s most wanted fugitive militant commanders, told a jehadi rally here in Pakistani Kashmir.

However, Salahuddin - who is the chief commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, the largest terror outfit fighting in Kashmir - said the militants would settle for “nothing less than complete freedom of Kashmir from India”, according to Online news agency of Pakistan.

He opposed any division of Jammu and Kashmir or autonomy.

Calling for demilitarisation of the state, the militant commander alleged that “boisterous military build-up” was the “biggest and foremost hurdle in (solving the Kashmir) issue”.

“This”, he said, “left no choice except for jehad as previous experiments of dialogue had proved failure”.

“Jehad will change the entire geo-political structure of the sub-continent as it would also free much-oppressed Indian Muslims,” he said.