ISLAMABAD, June 14: Pakistan’s Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed denied on Tuesday a newspaper report that he ran training camps for Kashmiri militants fighting Indian rule in the country. “I never ran any militant camp. I have nothing to with any militancy or guerilla warfare,” Mr Rashid told Reuters.
He said he had provided shelter to Kashmiri separatist leader, Yasin Malik, and other Kashmiris when they arrived in Pakistan after an insurgency erupted in held Kashmir in 1989.
“Being a Kashmiri, I have to provide them bread and butter. But there was nothing more than that,” he said.
Mr Malik, one of nine separatist leaders in Pakistan to discuss the future of the Himalayan region with leaders of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, said he was misquoted in the report.
“It is unfortunate. I never spoke of gun or training camps with regard to Sheikh Rashid (Ahmed),” Malik told Reuters. “What I have said is that ... he provided hospitality when we were just on the roadside.”
INDIA’S CONCERN: But India’s Foreign Ministry said Malik’s “revelation ... is a matter of great concern”. It renewed India’s charges that Pakistan was not doing enough to curb cross-border movements of militants into held Kashmir.
“It is particularly serious that people directly involved in such activities continue to occupy high positions in Pakistan,” the ministry said in a statement posted on its official website.—Reuters
