Musharraf claims India backs rebels
ONE of the architects of the war on terrorism has accused India of arming and training terrorist groups to attack Pakistan and has warned of an emerging ‘‘proxy war’’ between the two countries in Afghanistan after the departure of western forces.
Pervez Musharraf, who served as Pakistan’s ruler for nine years until 2008, said it was the responsibility of Nato to stop India from using Afghanistan as a base from which to ‘‘stab Pakistan in the back’’ by backing separatist rebels in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan.
‘‘They are doing it now,’’ he said, speaking at his heavily guarded home in a military compound in Karachi. ‘‘There are training camps of terrorists of Baluchistan in Afghanistan being trained by India ... This must stop. Otherwise we will end up in a proxy war there, which will not be good for the region.’’
Musharraf, who faces charges of murder and treason linked to his seizure of power in 1999, said Baluch separatists were being ‘‘infiltrated, trained, financed and armed’’ by India’s foreign intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing.
‘‘Absolutely they are there and these are being managed by the [Indian] consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar because ... these consulates are not diplomatic missions. These are intelligence missions.’’
Baluchistan, a vast, rugged province bordering Iran and Afghanistan, has been plagued for decades by a separatist insurgency, but the conflict has deteriorated sharply since 2004.
Musharraf spoke as Pakistan reeled from the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history, with 132 children killed in a gun and bomb attack on a school in Peshawar. The Pakistani Taliban said it attacked the school. Several people have been arrested for planning the attack.
Musharraf’s accusations will be greeted with scorn by India. Officials at the defence ministry in Delhi declined to comment on his claims.
However, they were lent credence by a WikiLeaks cable dated 2009 from Stratfor, a private US intelligence company, which read: ‘‘India has increasingly been backing the Baluch rebels as a counter to Pakistan’s support for Kashmiri militants. There has been a rise in the Indian involvement since the overthrow of the Taliban government in Afghanistan.’’
India routinely accuses Pakistan of smuggling militants and weapons into Indianadministered Kashmir, a disputed territory claimed by both countries since they won independence from Britain in 1947. Most recently, 11 Indian troops were killed in an attack by militants who apparently had crossed into Indian Kashmir from Pakistan on December 5. Indian media reported that the militants, six of whom were killed, were carrying food and medical packets with Pakistani labels.