NEW DELHI – Former RAW Chief AS Dulat in his book The Spy Chronicles hasrevealed how RAW helped to save the life of then Pakistan President PervezMusharraf.
In 2004, RAW passed on actionable intelligence to the ISI about the JeM’splans to hit Musharraf. He was saved by a whisker. RAW also helped in theidentification and arrest of culprits.
Two out of them were later executed following the Peshawar army schoolbombing. Another startling revelation is Dulat’s assessment that Musharrafwas involved in the planning of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Though, Musharrafhad abdicated office at the time of attacks, Dulat believes that theplanning for them had almost been completed during his tenure.
According to him, Musharraf was getting frustrated that despite abandoningPakistan’s traditional stand on Kashmir, India was not responding to hispeace proposal.
Dulat is seen as the last word on Kashmir in Delhi circles. But in thepresent dispensation, he seems out of place. He was posted in Kashmir in1989 almost at the same time when militancy took over the region. But dueto differences with then Governor Jagmohan, he then moved to Delhi after ayear where he headed the Jammu and Kashmir cell of the IB for the next 10years.
Dulat’s idea of dealing with Kashmir has been very unconventional. Histheory is to use minimum physical force and instead employ money andpersuasive powers to buy loyalties. In his previous book “Kashmir:
The Vajpayee Years”, he has mentioned his relations with many Kashmiriseparatist leaders such as the late AbdulGhani Lone, Shabir Ahmed Shah,Abdul Ghani Bhat, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and militant commanders like BabarBadar and others. He has mentioned how Shabir Shah was supposed to takeover as chief minister in 1996, but backed out just before elections weredeclared. Again in 2002, he had worked on Abdul Ghani Lone to participatein the elections, but was killed.
Twelve years later, Lone’s son Sajjad Gani Lone successfully contestedelections in 2014 and is now a minister in the PDP-BJP government. UnlikePDP, he was perhaps the only politician in the Valley who had a pre-pollelectoral alliance with the BJP. Another coup by Dulat was to get theoperational commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) Abdul Majeed Dar toannounce a ceasefire.
He mentioned the killings of Lone and Dar by Pakistani agencies had rattledNew Delhi to the extent that someone had suggested killing Hurriyat hawkSyed Ali Shah Geelani in a tit-for-tat policy.