'Will send suicide bombers to turn Kashmir into graveyard': Hizbul chief

Muzaffarabad (PoK): Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin on Saturday vowed to prevent any peaceful resolution to the Kashmir conflict, even as an all-party team from India headed to the Valley for discussions with all stakeholders.

According to a report, Salahuddin threatened to ‘train more Kashmiri suicide bombers, who would turn the Valley into a graveyard for Indian forces’.

Justifying the use of suicide bombers, Salahuddin said, "If soldiers from Andhra Pradesh, Madras, Assam, Nagaland, Haryana, Bihar and Delhi violate the sanctity of our houses, we are compelled and justified to carry out a suicide attack."

Dismissing talks as futile, Salahuddin, 69, insisted that there was no solution to Kashmir except militancy, by launching a ‘target-oriented armed struggle’.

Salahuddin, who heads the United Jihad Council (UJC), a Pakistan-backed alliance of anti-Indian Kashmiri militant groups, said the movement in Kashmir had entered a critical phase after Hizbul commander Burhan Wani's killing, said the report. He claimed that Kashmir had been turned into a ‘concentration camp’ after the Hizbul commander’s killing, and that ‘sacrifices will not go in vain’.

Salahuddin called for India to recognise Kashmir as a disputed area, without which talks could not be held. However, he threatened to show his ‘might’ and said Hizbul Mujahideen would take the struggle outside Kashmir, to other parts of the region and the globe.

The terror outfit’s chief had unsuccessfully contested the 1987 J&K assembly elections as a candidate of the Muslim United Front, an outfit sponsored by Jamaat-e-Islami – though he now abhors and rejects the electoral process.

He later fled to Pakistan and was provided protection by ISI and the establishment, and emerged as Syed Salahuddin.