Home »General News » Pakistan » General Beg confirms report of Rashid’s camp

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  • Jun 17th, 2005
  • Comments Off on General Beg confirms report of Rashid’s camp
Former Pakistan Army Chief General Mirza Aslam Beg has confirmed the Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad did run a training camp for Kashmiri militants at his Fatehjang Road farm house. "I was the army chief in 1991, when the government of Nawaz Sharif came to know about this camp," Beg told foreign media on Thursday, when asked to comment on the statement of Kashmiri leader Yasin Malik that Sheikh Rashid ran the camp.

Beg said the camp named "freedom house" was located some 16-kilometer from Islamabad. "However, when presence of the camp came into the notice of Nawaz Sharif, immediate orders were issued for its closure in 1991," he added.

Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Chief Malik had said, in the initial days of the Kashmir movement, about 3,500 boys were accommodated at the Sheikh's farm house for the purpose.

However, General Beg said Malik's statement would not let Indian government justify its claims about presence of training camps in Pakistan. "Sheikh Rashid's contribution was not so big as implied by Malik," the former army chief added.

In New Delhi, senior separatist leader Hashim Qureshi said all the initial armed training to Kashmiri youths was imparted at the camps, run by Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid.

"Yaseen Malik has spoken truth. I was a senior office-bearer of the JKLF till 1994. I have myself talked to the cadres who were trained in his camp in Ternool," the man who had hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1971, said here.

Qureshi, who is now opposed to the armed struggle, said all the JKLF camps were being run from his farm house and land, which was located 13-km from Rawalpindi on Peshawar road.

The camps at Sheikh Rashid's were being looked after by senior JKLF leader Sardar Rasheed Hasrat.

Qureshi, who broke away from the JKLF and formed his own JK Democratic Liberation Party, told UNI "the camps were there till 1990 after which they were transferred to other areas."

Copyright South Asian News Agency, 2005


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