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For over four decades, Pakistan has used Gilgit-Baltistan, the part of Jammu & Kashmir under her occupation, as a hide out, training camp and launching pad for the militants to infiltrate in Indian Kashmir and Afghanistan. Famous among the terror groups which have found refuge in Gilgit-Baltistan are Lashkar-e-Taiba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jesh-e-Mohammad and Harkatul Mujahideen. According to the local media, Pakistani citizens settled in villages like Sikarkoi and Baseen provide sanctuaries to the militants. Local politicians including Saifur Rehman and Shabbir Wali of Pakistan Muslim League, Raziuddin and Wazir Beg of Pakistan Peoples’ Party and Sunni scholar, Qazi Nisar, accuse Pakistani agencies of arming and protecting the militants and giving them a free hand in the region. In recent months, locals have spotted vehicles belonging to Pakistani agencies transporting militants into Kunar, Wakhan and Badakhshan provinces of Afghanistan via the Ghizer district. Further, Taliban and Al-Qaida have also increased their activities in Chitral and attack and abduct the residents. The situation is alarming for the people of Gilgit-Baltistan, since Chitral borders Ghizer district.
The impact of the presence of the terrorists in Gilgit-Baltistan is far reaching as they interfere in local political and socio-economic affairs and intend to alter cultural and religious identity of the region. Those among the natives who oppose their activities have faced death and involuntary disappearances. On the other side, death becomes destiny of those too who join the Taliban to fight the allied forces. Militants mainly target orphans and children belonging to the poverty stricken families and induct them in the Madrassahs, where they are brainwashed to abandon moderate form of Sufi Islam and adopt extremist Salafism.
