Hizbul chief ready for talks

In a significant shift from his routine anti-peace rhetoric, Pakistan-based United Jehad Council chief Syed Salahuddin on Thursday said he was ready for a dialogue with India if talks brought “real-time results”.

“We are interested in a serious and conducive dialogue [with India] with real-time results,” Salahuddin, who is among India’s most wanted militants, told a jehadi rally here in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

However, Salahuddin — who is also the commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, the largest terror outfit fighting in Kashmir — said the militants would settle for “nothing less than complete freedom of Kashmir from India”, according to a Pakistani news agency.

He opposed any division of Jammu and Kashmir or autonomy.

Calling for demilitarisation of the State, he alleged that “boisterous military build-up” was the “biggest and foremost hurdle in [solving the Kashmir] issue”.

“This left no choice except for jehad as previous experiments of dialogue had proved failure,” he said.

“Jehad will change the entire geo-political structure of the sub-continent as it would also free much-oppressed Indian Muslims,” he said.