In a dramatic disclosure, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) terrorist Yasin Malik, who is at present serving life for funding terror, has said that he was personally thanked by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after his 2006 meeting with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder and mastermind behind the 26/11 attacks Hafiz Saeed in Pakistan, NDTV reported.
According to the report, Malik, in an affidavit presented to the Delhi High Court on August 25 claimed that the 2006 meeting was not started by him on his own. Instead, it was done on the instructions of senior Indian intelligence officials as part of a backchannel peace process with Pakistan.
According to Malik, the then Special Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), V. K. Joshi, met him in Delhi before he went to Pakistan, which was after the tragic 2005 Kashmir earthquake.
Malik claimed that Mr Joshi asked him to meet not just Pakistani political leaders but also terrorist leaders, including Saeed, to further the peace initiatives of then Prime Minister Singh.
Malik has stated that he was clearly instructed that talking to Pakistan would be useless if terrorist commanders were not engaged in the talks. Following instructions, he met Saeed and other United Jihad Council commanders at a Pakistani event.
In his affidavit, Malik explained how Saeed organized a meeting of jihadist organizations, where he gave a speech to encourage terrorists to accept peace. Referencing Islamic precepts, Malik explained Saeed stressed reconciliation rather than bloodshed, citing, "if somebody offers you peace, purchase peace with him."
The 2006 summit, however, went on to be controversial as proof of Malik's supposed connections to Pakistani terror syndicates. Malik referred to this as a "classic betrayal," claiming that the project had been sanctioned at an official level but was later distorted for political reasons.
The most incendiary aspect of Malik's remark relates to his activities after he came back to India. He said that after a debriefing with the IB, he was asked to brief the Prime Minister personally.
Malik stated that he met Mr Singh on the same evening in New Delhi, accompanied by then National Security Advisor M. K. Narayanan. Singh, he alleged, thanked him in person for his commitment and perseverance in involving even the most extreme elements in Pakistan.
"When I returned to New Delhi from Pakistan, Special Director IB V K Joshi as part of the debriefing exercise, met me in the hotel and requested me to immediately brief the Prime Minister," Malik said.
"I met the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the same evening where N K Narayan, National Security Advisor, was also present. I briefed him on my meetings and appraised him on the possibilities, where he conveyed his gratitude to me for my efforts, time, patience and dedication," he added.
Pointing to a photo in which he is shaking hands with Singh, Malik said, "When I met Manmohan Singh as PM, without any hesitation he said, I consider you father of non-violent movement in Kashmir."
In his affidavit, Malik also recounted encounters with a number of prominent political leaders, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Sonia Gandhi, P. Chidambaram, I. K. Gujral, and Rajesh Pilot.
"After my arrest in 1990, I was actively engaged by six consecutive dispensations under the leadership of Shri VP Singh, Shri ChandraShekhar, Shri PV Narsimha Rao, Shri HD Devagauda, Shri Inder Kumar Gujral, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee till Shri Manmohan Singh. Not only I was provided domestic platform to speak about the Kashmiri cause, but I was actively roped in time and again by the said governments in power and was actively persuaded to speak on international platforms," he said.
If Malik's claims are true, they pose serious questions regarding the backchannel strategies used in India's peace diplomacy towards Pakistan and to what extent state agencies depended on separatist leaders and terrorists. Most significantly, his statement that a serving Indian Prime Minister had thanked one of the world's most wanted terrorists could lead to serious political controversy.
Malik is blamed for killing four Indian Air Force personnel in Srinagar in January 1990 and kidnapping the daughter of then Union Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Rubiya Saeed. The Kashmiri Pandit community has blamed Malik for many years for the ethnic cleansing and mass exodus of their people since 1990.
For the moment, the affidavit is a shocking nexus of peace diplomacy, intelligence policy, and terrorism with Malik directly putting India's former Prime Minister into the picture of his controversial meeting with Hafiz Saeed.
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