J&K minister says China on its way to assume major role in J&K

DC CORRESPONDENT SRINAGAR, FEB. 20 A senior minister in the PDP-BJP government has stirred up a hornet’s nest by saying that China is a major factor in Jammu and Kashmir and that the dispute over the scenic Himalayan state is not restricted to India and Pakistan alone.

“Unlike earlier, the great game is literally being played inside Kashmir… The Kashmir issue isn’t limited to the fight between India and Pakistan now. There is another major factor involved,” minister for public works and chief spokesman of the J&K government, Naeem Akhter, has said in an interview to a national newspaper. He also said Jaish-e-Muhammad, the group responsible for major terror attacks, has been veritably “adopted” by Beijing.

Akhter has said in his interview, that China is on its way to assume a “much bigger role in Kashmir.” He said, “It isn’t Pakistan alone, it is China too. General (Bipin Rawat) said that the Army is ready to fight on both fronts. But there aren’t two fronts anymore. Now it is one single front, circling around. From Bhutan to Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Valley to Jammu, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, it is all one front. Pakistan and China aren’t separate.”

Elaborating on the alleged correlation between China and the JeM, he said, “All the big attacks inside J&K during last more than three years are attributed to JeM, a group led by Masood Azhar. How can one not see that he (Masood Azhar) has been adopted by China?”