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Sharif accuses Musharraf of involvement in Kashmir |
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June 14, 2000
KARACHI (AP) - A day after accusing Pakistan's army ruler of secretly orchestrating last summer's military confrontation in Indian Kashmir, Nawaz Sharif demanded an independent commission Tuesday to hear the evidence behind his accusation.
"There are a great many more things which I can tell a commission, one whose members are chosen with my consultation," the deposed premier told reporters in the southern port city of Karachi, where he is appealing his conviction on hijacking and terrorism charges.
Sharif's lawyer Azizullah Sheikh told the appeal's court that his client was transferred from northern Pakistan, where he is on trial on corruption charges, in chains and handcuffs.
"This kind of treatment is shameful," Sheikh told the court.
On Monday Sharif told reporters that Pakistan's Army Chief Gen.Pervez Musharraf surreptitiously staged the 1999 assault on Kargil in Indian-ruled Kashmir without informing him despite the fact that he was prime minister at the time. Sharif said that Musharraf also did not consult his military chiefs before sending troops into Indian-ruled Kashmir.
The intrusion led to a bitter border battle, which threatened to erupt into an all-out war between India and Pakistan, neighbors who have fought three wars in the last 53 years.
At the height of the border battle India accused the Pakistan military of staging the intrusion, disguising their soldiers as Muslim secessionists. Pakistan denied the accusation saying the warriors were guerrilla fighters who have been waging a bitter secessionist insurgency in Indian-ruled Kashmir since 1989. But on Monday Sharif said the Pakistani denials had been lies.
"It was faulty and weak planning and resulted in the death of hundreds of (Pakistani) officers and soldiers," Sharif said Monday.
"A whole unit of the Northern Light Infantry was wiped out."
In Pakistani newspapers Tuesday army spokesman Gen. Rashid Quereshi called Sharif's accusations were "terrible". In Karachi on Tuesday, Sharif called the incursion into Kargil "the worst debacle since the 1971 war." In that, the last war with India, the two uneasy neighbors fought over what was then East Pakistan. It later became an independent Bangladesh.
The two previous wars between Pakistan and India, fought in 1948 and 1965, were over Kashmir, the former princely state which was divided between the South Asian neighbors after the end of British rule in the subcontinent in 1947.
Both India and Pakistan lay claim to a united Kashmir.
India accuses Pakistan of fomenting violence on its territory and of arming, training and funding militant secessionists demanding either outright independence for a united Kashmir or union with Islamic Pakistan. Pakistan has denied the charges saying their aid is moral and political.
Kashmir is India's only Muslim-dominated state. Most of India's one billion people are Hindus.
"I can give all the details to the commission. It is in our national interest that people should know the facts about Kargil,"
Sharif said Tuesday. "It was part of a move to destabilize a civilian government. Not only did they destabilize it but they overthrew it."
Sharif's government was overthrown in a bloodless coup on Oct.12, 1999. Musharraf took power after his passenger plane returning him to Pakistan from Sri Lanka was allowed to land.
Sharif and several of his colleagues were arrested and charged with hijacking accused of trying to stop Musharraf from returning to Pakistan.
Sharif is appealing the conviction and concurrent life sentences.
He also faces several charges of corruption.
Musharraf has promised to hold elections in Pakistan in the next three years after introducing electoral reforms, weeding out the corrupt and reviving the economy.
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