Pakistan's shadowy Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has unleashed a campaign in Europe, America and Canada to carry out “anti-India activities with regard to Kashmir”, an Indian intelligence agency said.

The report indicates that the “ISI has been the main source of building a platform abroad to undertake Kashmir-related propaganda on behalf of the Pakistan government and has been “creating and nurturing Kashmiri expatriate communities to carry out anti-India activities”.

The Age in reporting the contents of the report said the campaign is being conducted in a “well calibrated manner” with the ISI setting up Kashmiri organisations to interfacing with the representatives and members “to portray the desperate human rights situation in Indian Kashmir (sic)”.

Pakistani organisations based abroad and separatists in India observed “black day” on October 27, the day Indian troops landed in Kashmir in 1947, to highlight the plight of Kashmiris, the newspaper said.

India and Pakistan maintain forces in Kashmir along a cease-fire line created in 1947 when the British Indian empire was partitioned. Two of the three wars India and Pakistan have fought since colonial rule ended have been over control of the region. But there is a deep anti-India sentiment in Kashmir, where separatist politicians and armed rebels envision a separate homeland or merging with neighbouring Pakistan. And while India has favoured quiet diplomacy, Pakistan has sought to draw international attention to the situation.

Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency has an annual budget of $300-400 million and "is now assumed (to have a) base strength of approximately 4,000 (people)", says German scholar Hein Kiessling, who represented the Hanns-Seidel-Foundation (Munich) in Pakistan from 1989 to 2002, 

In his book, "Revisiting Contemporary South Asia", Kiessling says: "Today the ISI is one of the most active and best intelligence services in Asia.

"It is controlled and efficiently run -- there is no ISI within the ISI. Although officially the Internal Cell was declared closed, it still exists.

"The ISI is the eyes and ears of the military. The military forces see themselves as guardians of Pakistan's survival. The author says that ISI has again intensified involvement in "Azad Kashmir" (Pakistan-administered Kashmir).

He adds that psychological pressure was being exerted on former fighters to reactivate them in Jammu and Kashmir, where a Pakistan-backed separatist campaign has cost thousands of lives since 1989. 

The Age reported that Indian intelligence agencies have indicated that the Pakistani Army’s relentless ceasefire violations at India-Pakistan Line of Control is also an attempt to keep the Kashmir issue ticking on the international stage. 

These groups feel that Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif “needs to be more aggressive in his approach and focus on seeking a solution to the issue rather than making friendly gestures towards India”, intelligence sources revealed.

“These organisations are more visible in the European continent mainly because there is a large chunk of Kashmiri population based in these countries who readily get the support of the Pakistani diaspora for undertaking such activities (sic)”.

While Canada was listed as a target country for the ISI anti-India campaign, it was claimed that the main focus of the Pakistani government and the ISI was to carry out anti-India propaganda in the European Union “where crucial decisions on human rights violations are taken up”. 

It said that A UK-based Kashmiri lobby has also been able to target British MPs from areas where their population representation is significant. One such area is Bradford where Respect Party leader George Galloway called upon India to stop alleged human rights violations in Kashmir.

In Canada, reports have surfaced that money raised by the Canadian branch of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) may have gone to support a militant Kashmiri separatist group. 

A Canada Revenue Agency audit revealed ISNA may have shipped more than $280,000 to a Pakistan-based agency, cash the government fears went to supporting the Hizbul Mujahideen — a militant group that seeks the secession of Kashmir from India.

The charity has dismissed the suggestion that the money it gave to the Pakistan-based Relief Organization for Kashmiri Muslims may have landed in the wrong hands because of poor 

The ISNA-Canada case is not the first time the question of North American Muslim Brotherhood ties to Kashmiri interests have been raised.  In August 2011, U.S. Muslim Brotherhood activist Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai was arrested by the FBI and accused of acting as an agent for the Pakistani intelligence service and being involved in secret lobbying efforts inside the U.S.  

The US Justice Department in court documents said Pakistan's spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, directed a clandestine, multi-million dollar effort through a Washington non-profit group to influence the U.S. position on Kashmir.

Tarek Fatah, a columnist with the Toronto Sun has written that he has been targeted by the ISI for his writings.

He referred to an article in the Pakistani Islamist newspaper, The Nation, which “ran a back page ISI-inspired story accusing me of being an agent of the Indian and Israeli secret intelligence agencies, RAW and Mossad.”

Recently the host of an ethnic TV show in Urdu also complained that a Toronto-based Pakistani diplomat was harassing him and had referred to Pakistani Canadian journalists as “prostitutes” and “Indian agents.”

“The ISI has no business targeting Canadian citizens. The sooner Canada expels this vermin from our land, the better it will be. Our federal government should send a clear message to Islamabad: “Your goons are not welcome in Canada, even if they hide under the burka of diplomatic titles,” wrote Tarek Fatah.

 

 

The Kashmir conflict

 

The mountainous region of Kashmir has been a flashpoint between India and Pakistan for more than 60 years. 

The territory of Kashmir was hotly contested even before India and Pakistan won their independence from Britain in August 1947.

Under the partition plan provided by the Indian Independence Act of 1947, Kashmir was free to accede to India or Pakistan.

Since then, the territory has been the spark for two of the three India-Pakistan wars: the first in 1947-8, the second in 1965.

In 1999, India fought a brief but bitter conflict with Pakistani-backed forces who had infiltrated Indian-controlled territory in the Kargil area.

From potentially being one of the most dangerous disputes in the world - which in the worst-case scenario could trigger a nuclear conflict –India has reported multiple incidents of alleged Line of Control  violations being carried out by Pakistan.

BBC News reported that since the start of 2013, India has accused Pakistan of nearly 200 LoC violations. India had said that Pakistani troops fired at over 50 locations along the border in Kashmir.

Pakistan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Masood Khan meanwhile raked up the Kashmir issuethis month  in a session on the right of people to self-determination, repeating his country's position that Jammu and Kashmir is "not an integral part of India".