A group of 30 members of an organisation headed by Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed comprising doctors and paramedical staff will apply for Indian visas on Tuesday to treat and provide medicines to the injured in Kashmir.
“A team of 30 doctors and paramedical staff of ‘Muslim Medical Mission’ (of the Jamaat-ud-Dawah) will apply for Indian visa on Tuesday in order to reach Kashmir where they could treat the people injured in clashes with the Indian Army. Eye specialists are part of the team who will treat many people suffering from eye injuries there,” Ahmed Nadeem, an official of the JuD, said.
Saeed, wanted by India for his role in the Mumbai attacks, announced last night that his team will seek permission to go to Kashmir which has been on the boil for more than two weeks over the killing of Hizbul militant Burhan Wani.
Saeed had also claimed he had received a call from Wani, which Home Minister Rajnath Singh said amounted to an “open confession” of the Pakistani terrorist’s role in fomenting trouble in Kashmir. “The entire world should take note of it,” Singh said.
However, it was not immediately known whether the visa sought on “humanitarian grounds” will be granted by commission or not.
Asked about how the Indian embassy in Islamabad would entertain the JuD medical team’s request in the current circumstances, Nadeem said the Muslim Medical Mission would request the Pakistani government to help in this regard.
Meanwhile, the mission’s president Prof Dr Zafar Iqbal Chaudhry said if the Indian government does not allow its medical team to travel to Srinagar to treat the injured Kashmiris, it would hold demonstrations against it.
Chaudhry claimed that it is “our duty to reach out to the injured Kashmiris for their treatment as the Indian government is not fully providing treatment to the injured”.
“A three-member Indian doctors team returned from Srinagar without treating the injured,” he alleged.
JuD chief Hafiz Saeed had earlier said that Burhan had called him over the phone and informed about the operation he was working on.
Reacting to this, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said it amounted to an “open confession” of the Pakistani terrorist’s role in fomenting trouble in Kashmir. “The entire world should take note of it,” Singh said.
