Homeland Security

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• Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, the August 14 issue of News India-Times carried a very interesting story. Kuldip Nayar, a veteran journalist and former Indian Ambassador to the United Kingdom who is now a member of the upper house of India's Parliament, admitted that India is a terrorist state. How long will it take for America to admit it?

• Mr. Nayar was quoted as saying that Pakistan's attack on the village of Doda was an act of retaliation for Indian massacres in the Pakistani state of Sindh. Nayar has been a vocal opponent of the Indian government's nuclear tests, according to the story. Now he is admitting that India has undertaken activities designed to destabilize Pakistan. This is part of India's drive for total hegemony in South Asia.

• Unfortunately, Mr. Nayar's remarks ignore another aspect of Indian state terrorism: the tyranny it has inflicted on the Sikhs, the Christians of Nagaland, the Muslims of Kashmir and others. According to very credible numbers published by human-rights groups and the Punjab judiciary, the government of India has murdered more than 250,000 Sikhs since 1984, in excess of 200,000 Christians in Nagaland since 1947, almost 60,000 Kashmiri Muslims since 1988, and tens of thousands of Assamese, Tamils, Manipuris, Dalits, and others.

• The State Department reported that between 1992 and 1994 the Indian government paid over 41,000 cash bounties to police officers for murdering Sikhs. Two Canadian journalists published a book called Soft Target in which they proved that the Indian government blew up its own airliner in 1985 just to blame the Sikhs.

• In this light, the United States must declare India a terrorist state. We must then impose all the sanctions that we impose on any other terrorist state. This will be a good step towards ending the terrorism and restoring freedom to all the people of South Asia.

• I submit the News India-Times article for the Record.

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New Delhi: The recent statement allegedly made by Kuldip Nayar, veteran journalist and nominated member of the Rajya Sabha on the Doda massacre has created a furor in the country.

Nayar is now looked upon as a `treacherous, anti-national element' for suggesting that the massacre at Doda is only a retaliation by Pakistan for similar actions by Indian agents in Sindh.

The comment which has been so strong has even taken up editorial columns of the country's leading newspapers and magazines.

One such editorial piece has even called it a blasphemous statement and that patriotism has been turned into a dirty word by a `coterie of influential so-called intellectual.'

It added that such a statement would not have been made even by a spokesperson of Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services intelligence as that would have indicated its involvement in the Doda massacres.

Meanwhile, American Friends of India condemning Kuldip Nayar have circulated a release questioning Nayar's credibility as a representative of the nation. `This preposterous action by Kuldip Nayar brings several issues into question. Can he be trusted to be our representative in the Upper House of the Indian Parliament? Isn't his allegiance undoubtedly toward Pakistan? How can he support this inhuman brutality against his own countrymen? Is his representation of the Indian people justified?

It may be noted here that Nayar represents a lobby of so-called intellectuals that blames the Indian government for Pakistan-sponsored massacres in Kashmir, and vehemently supports the US Government protests against the Indian nuclear tests. Does this lobby stand for India's unity or does it wish for its dismemberment?

Nayar and his fellow co-conspirators will do well to note that Kashmir is not about religion. It is about freedom of religion. We urge the government of India and the Indian National Human Rights Commission to treat the Kashmiri Pandits as `internally displaced people' and stress the importance of providing conditions for their safe return to the valley.

In light of such terrible tragedy of fellow Indians in Kashmir, Nayar should be expelled from the Rajya Sabha. We also urge the patriotic parliamentarians to take immediate action against Nayar for his treacherous and anti-national actions in the Rajya Sabha,' the organization stated.

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