ISLAMABAD, June 1: A leader of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Ghulam Mohammad Safi has expressed apprehensions about the recurrence of a terrorist attack in occupied Kashmir on the eve of US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld’s visit to South Asia.

“Whenever there is a visit by any top American official to the region there is some big terrorist attack either in India or occupied Kashmir,” Mr Safi said while talking to Dawn at the local APHC office.

Mr Safi recalled that when the then US president Bill Clinton had visited India in March 2000, there was a massacre of 35 Sikhs in occupied Kashmir.

He said such attacks were made by the Indian intelligence agencies to defame the indigenous freedom struggle of the Kashmiri people. “Each time there is an incident against civilians we have to give a lot of explanations,” he said.

Mr Safi said the crackdown on militant organizations in Pakistan or sealing of the LoC would not have any impact on the indigenous freedom struggle.

He said the Muttahida Jihad Council was composed of indigenous Kashmiri groups and added that there was not a single Pakistan-based militant organization in it.

On the assassination of Abdul Gani Lone, he said Farooq Abdullah had withdrawn his guards in a phased manner only days before his “martyrdom.”