Those trying to eliminate Salahuddin even now are likely working on the directions of a Pak general, internal communication suggests

by Abhinandan Mishra

Internal communication accessed by The Sunday Guardian between supporters and members of the banned Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist outfit led by the Pakistan-based Syed Salahuddin indicates that their handlers, the Pakistan Army had decided to assassinate the HM commander, allegedly on the direction of former Pak Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. However, as per the claims made in the conversation, Salahuddin was saved at the last moment by officials in the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) who are “dedicated to the Kashmir cause”.

As per the claims made in the internal communication, Bajwa, who was appointed the Army Chief by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in November 2016, wanted to put a leash on the terror groups that were operating in Kashmir and hence when Salahuddin rejected the proposal given by the emissaries of Bajwa to cut back his anti-India operations, the former Army Chief decided to remove Salahuddin. The said events allegedly took place in early 2018.

The timeline matches the period when Bajwa met a few journalists in Islamabad in March 2018 and spoke about, among other topics, how he wanted to eliminate terrorism, bring willing terrorists into the mainstream etc. This way of looking and addressing issues was later coined by think tanks and journalists as the “Bajwa doctrine”.

These allegations gained some amount of credibility as the 78-year-old Kashmir born Salahuddin, who now lives in Pakistan occupied Kashmir, has gone underground and stopped making public appearances.

Since carrying out its first terror attack on the orders of its ideological guide, Jamaat-e-Islami, on 16 January 1990, when it killed a local police constable and hanged him from a tree, Hizbul Mujahideen and Syed Salahuddin are now a spent force. Salahuddin now rarely ventures out of his home, living under the constant fear of being eliminated by unidentified gunmen, who as the internal communication suggests, are more likely to be working on the directions of a Pakistan Army general.

However, as the incidents that happened later on indicate, either Bajwa decided to renege on his words of controlling the India specific terrorists groups or he was unable to control his generals and subordinates including those is Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) who wanted to continue with the aggressive policy against India that also includes financing and arming jihadi terror groups.

Exactly one year after Bajwa had talked about his doctrine and allegedly tried to rein in the terror groups, Jaish-e-Mohhamad carried out the deadly suicide attack on a CRPF convoy in February 2019, which led to India carrying out air strikes in Balakot on the Pakistan-based camps of Jaish.

When the Bajwa doctrine first came into discussion, the ISI, which is often regarded as the most influential arm of the Pakistan Army and hence in extension the most potent tool of the Army Chief, was being headed by Lieutenant General Naveed Mukhtar.

Mukhtar served as the ISI chief till October 2018 after which Syed Asim Munir, the present chief of Pakistan Army, took over as the head of ISI, a position on which he served till June 2019.

It is pertinent to mention that in February 2021, India and Pakistan announced a renewal of the ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir.

The internal communication further states that sometime in late 2022-early 2023, Salahuddin was approached by a senior official of the Pakistan Army with a request to rekindle the terror attacks in Kashmir. According to the claims, Salahuddin had asked that the jihadis would work more proactively if Bajwa and Faiz Hameed were court martialled for what the conversation claims was an attempt made by both to compromise on the Kashmir issue. The official had promised that Faiz, who took premature retirement with effect from 10 December 2022 would be taken care of but Bajwa couldn’t be touched.

(With reporting by Sunday Guardian Live)