Basit promoting Pakistan's policy of trying to create chaos in India: Defence experts

Defence experts on Wednesday said that High Commissioner of Pakistan to India Abdul Basit's statement on Hizbul Mujahideen Chief Syed Salahuddin shows he is following Pakistan's policy of trying to create chaos and mayhem in India.

"When the Pakistan Government itself does not accept him as a terrorist, then how would their Ambassador in India accept him to be one? Pakistan, in fact, has nurtured him as a national asset and a strategic partner and they continue to use him to try to create mayhem and chaos in India because that is their policy. Basit is just furthering their policy," defence expert P.K. Sehgal told ANI.

He added that when Trump administration declared Syed Salahuddin an international terrorist, then the Pakistan Government said that they do not consider him as one and even China backed them up.

Another defence expert D.S. Dhillon said that the entire world knows that Salahuddin is a terrorist and that he gives moral support and funds to all those who are trying to create chaos in Jammu and Kashmir.

Earlier yesterday, defending Hizbul Mujahideen Chief Syed Salahuddin, outgoing High Commissioner of Pakistan to India, Abdul Basit called out the United States for branding the former a 'terrorist'.

Speaking to ANI here, Basit said that Salahuddin was struggling for the right to self-determination of Kashmiris.

"Whatever he is doing, which is also seen in Pakistan and J-K, is a struggle for the right to self-determination," Basit said, adding that Salahuddin is not a terrorist as far as Pakistan is concerned.

"We don't agree with him being a global terrorist and also criticise the decision on part of the United States as well," he said.

Salahuddin, the senior leader of the militant group Hizbul Mujahideen, is one of the most wanted terrorists in the National Investigation Agency's (NIA) list.

In September 2016, Salahuddin vowed to block any peaceful resolution to the Kashmir conflict, threatened to train more Kashmiri suicide bombers, and vowed to turn the Kashmir valley "into a graveyard for Indian forces."

Under Salahuddin's tenure as senior Hizbul leader, the terror outfit claimed responsibility for several attacks, including the April 2014 explosives attack in Jammu and Kashmir, which injured 17 people.

-ANI