MUZAFFARABAD: An alliance of Kashmiri militant organisations claimed on Monday that the deadly attack on India’s Pathankot airbase was carried out by a group of Kashmiri “freedom fighters”.

The United Jihad Council (UJC) said the attack was a message to India that Kashmiris could strike at any of its sensitive installations.

“The Pathankot airbase attack has been carried out by the Mujahideen associated with National Highway Squad,” UJC spokesman Syed Sadaqat Hussain said in a statement.

The UJC comprises over a dozen groups fighting Indian forces in held Kashmir. It is headed by Syed Salahuddin, supreme ‘commander’ of Hizbul Mujahideen.

Little has been heard of the ‘National Highway Squad’ in the past.

The spokesman said that Pakistan had nothing to do with the attack but “the Indian government, media and their armed forces are suffering from Pakistan phobia”.

“By hurling allegations at Pakistan, India could neither sabotage the struggle of Kashmiri people in the past nor can it do so now.”

He said India had let loose a reign of terror in the held territory for decades, killing over one hundred thousand people and demolishing hundreds of thousands of houses and other structures. Thousands of people arrested by Indian forces had disappeared, he added.

Asking India to halt human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir, the spokesman said: “It would be better for the Indian leadership to read the writing on the wall and let the Kashmiris decide their fate of their own accord, without further waste of time.”

Published in Dawn, January 5th, 2016