‘RAW destabilising neighbouring countries’

Muslims states in the South Asia region have been cautioned against trusting India, which harbours ambitions of establishing hegemony over its neighbouring states.

The warning came from an unlikely source, Bangladeshi-American author and a former Mukti Bahini guerilla leader Mohammad Zainul Abedin while speaking at an international webinar organized by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS).

Abedin, who was trained in India to fight against Pakistan in 1971, cautioned all South Asian countries against trusting India. He alleged that the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), was actively involved in destabilizing neighbouring South Asian states to control them and the region. He urged South Asian states to form an alliance to prevent New Delhi from exploiting, subjugating or oppressing them.

Having authored several books on Indian involvement in the 1971 war, Abedin said that trusting India was a grave mistake made by Bengali Muslims because New Delhi later converted Dhaka into its proxy state. He reminded that India has systematically occupied several former princely states since 1947.

Azad Jammu and Kashmir President Sardar Masood Khan stated that without ideological muscle, Muslims will collapse. He warned that the history of Muslims around the world is being distorted through books, think tanks, movies and social media.

He urged the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) member states to boycott Indian goods and impose economic sanctions on New Delhi.

Masood described India as an artificial state, explaining that India has never existed as a unified state with its current territory until it was unified first by the Muslims and later by the British.

India, he said, is currently waging three wars, including one against minorities inside its borders, the second one against Kashmiris and the third against its neighbours.

The AJK president compared Indian policy towards Kashmiri Muslims with the one followed by the Nazis against the Jews.

Even though India considers Pakistan as its enemy number one, it has not stopped it from spreading to other neighbours in its ambitious quest for expansionism, Masood said.

American Muslim scholar Imam Abdul Mujahid said that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is just like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and that they cannot hide behind peaceful symbols such as Gandhi, the Taj Mahal and veganism anymore.

IPS Executive President Khalid Rahman termed RSS as the world’s largest terrorist organization, which is internationally exploiting Indian economic clout and secular and democratic outlook to promote its expansionist agenda.