Militant flays Zardari over India and "terrorists"

By Zeeshan Haider

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The founder of one of Pakistan's most feared armed Islamist groups accused President Asif Ali Zardari of being too dovish toward India, and criticized him for referring to militants in Indian-held Kashmir as "terrorists."

Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a major militant group fighting in Indian Kashmir, described Zardari's comments as "a clear violation and digression from the consistent policy of Pakistan."

Though India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their partition in 1947, Zardari told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Saturday, that "India has never been a threat to Pakistan."

His remarks were encouraging for a peace process that has made glacial progress on core territorial disputes like Kashmir since his predecessor, General Pervez Musharraf, began talks with India nearly five years ago.

But Zardari's perception stands at odds with traditional thinking in a Pakistani military establishment that has always seen its eastern neighbor as the Muslim state's greatest threat.

Lashkar-e-Taiba is one of the groups that analysts say the Pakistan military has used to run a proxy war in Indian Kashmir since the 1990s, though Pakistan has always said it only gave moral and diplomatic support for the Kashmiri freedom struggle.

Saeed, now head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an Islamist charity regarded as a front for the LeT, told Reuters by telephone from the eastern city of Lahore that he was pained by Zardari's comments.

"Pakistan has always pleaded the cause of Kashmiri people but the present elected government, particularly President Zardari, who has wrested all powers, is openly referring to freedom fighters as terrorists and talking about trade with India," Saeed said.

"It tantamounts to rubbing salt on the wounds of Kashmiris at a time when their movement has turned into a popular uprising."

Zardari, widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, told the U.N. General Assembly last month that his government "will fight against terrorists who attack us and fight against terrorists who use our territory to plan attacks against our neighbors or anywhere else in the world."

Saeed voiced support for the recent anti-India protests in Indian Kashmir triggered by a decision to grant land for shelters for Hindu pilgrims traveling to mostly-Muslim Kashmir.

Around 40 people have been killed by the Indian security forces and 1,000 wounded in these protests.

"I think the peace process should be abolished ... Pakistan should support the uprising. Right now there is no militancy there, now it's a popular movement," Saeed said.

The two nuclear-armed neighbors, went to the brink of their fourth war in 2002 after an attack on the Indian parliament in New Delhi in December 2001.

India accused Lashkar-e-Taiba and another militant group of being behind the attack.