Pak army trains terrorists, provides safe havens to them: PoK activist

Muzaffarabad: The Pakistan Army trains terrorists and provides safe havens and sanctuaries to them, Tauqeer Geelani, a PoK activist, said on Sunday.

At a rally in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), Geelani said, "Pakistan has been bombarding its own land for the last 15 years. The army has trained around 200 or 400, maybe even 500, terrorists and are providing safe havens to them. These terrorists are then taken places and introduced as jihadis. They spread jihad in Afghanistan, Punjab and Kashmir."

"How can they be loyal to the people in Kashmir, when they are not loyal to their own people, own land, and their own culture?" Geelani added.

He also spoke about the inhuman treatment being meted out to innocent youth of the valley.

"Recently, the Frontiers Works Organisation, a military engineering organisation, arrested few innocent youth of the Neelum Valley and inhumanly treated them while they were in custody," Geelani said.

Earlier in September, four young men, who were looking for work at one of the work-sites in the Neelum Valley area of the PoK, were allegedly illegally picked up by the Pakistan Army and brutally beaten up at the behest of a Pakistani contractor.

The Pakistan Army captain ordered his men to carry guns and shoot any local, who is seen seeking job near work-site.

The victims had also alleged that the local authorities were "mere puppets and are bound to take orders from Islamabad."

The residents of the Falakun village of the Neelum Valley had also staged a protest demonstration against the Pakistan Army and its intelligence agencies.

They shouted slogans like 'jeeney ka haq do' (Give us the right to live) and demanded information about the whereabouts of people, who were made to disappear at the hands of the Pakistan Army.

The protestors also claimed that the local youth were being abducted and tortured up by the Pakistan Army.