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Lashkar admits role in Kargil conflict

For the first time since the Kargil conflict, the Pakistan based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, engaged in subversive actvities in Jammu and Kashmir, has admitted its active involvement in the aggression.

Lashkar, working under the Centre for Religious Learning and Propagation, blamed deposed Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharief for forcing them to withdraw from Kargil.

''We were shamed by Sharief, who made us withdraw,'' says Prof Zafar Iqbal, vice chancellor of the centre, at Muridke near Lahore.

Its activities had also caused concern for the United States, which proposed to brand it as a foreign terrorist organisation. The legal procedure in this regard is underway, Michael Sheehan, US co-ordinator for counter terrorism said Thursday.

Testifying before the International Relations Committee of the House, he acknowledged that Pakistan had become a fertile ground for ''jehad factories''.

Prof Zafar said in a recent interview with Pakistan newsmen that many students of the centre go to Muzzafarabad for training, where camps have been set up. These camps are out of bounds to common people.

He said there has been no let-up in the activities of the militant organisation and the aim was to attain ''independence for Kashmir or absorption into Pakistan''.

But he is quick to point out that ''we don't fight in India'', claiming that Kashmir was an integral part of Pakistan.

UNI

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