Now, ISI training women for jihad in J&K

JAMMU: At the time when militancy in Jammu & Kashmir has fallen to its lowest levels in two decades, desperation across the border is evident with Pakistan's ISI preparing women terrorists squads to fuel violence in the state.

The revelation of a Pakistani woman, Asiya Bibi (23), who is in J&K police's custody, that ISI is training about 100 women for terror assignments in the state has sent the security establishment into a tizzy. Asiya, arrested from Rajouri along the LoC in November last year, told her interrogators that the women fidayeen were undergoing arms training in various terror camps at Bimbar, Kotli and Sena in PoK. "In Bimbar, dozens of women are receiving arms training along with men,'' an interrogator quoted Asiya as saying. "Pakistan army soldiers are training women in Sensa and Kotli while ISI men are incharge at Bimbar.''

Asiya, wife of a Pakistani soldier Mohammed Sajjad, confessed that ISI had deputed her for spying along the LoC. "She was on mission to take photographs of the fencing and collect information on the deployment along the LoC,'' a source said. She also told her interrogators that ISI was initially planning to push 17 girls into India to mix with the local population. "As per the plan, they were to marry locals and finally act as spies,'' the source said.

But an intelligence source refused to accept Asiya's confession and said she could be exaggerating. "Asiya had a quarrel with her husband and crossed over to this side in a fit of rage,'' he said.

Jammu SSP Manohar Singh said women have been involved in terrorism in the past too. "Dozens of women may be directly involved in militancy but most of them are driven by money and not conviction,'' Singh said. He said last year in March, police identified six such women. "We arrested three of them and kept the rest under surveillance,'' he said.

In November 2005, a Jaish-e-Mohammed suicide bomber Yasmeena (22) had blown herself up at Awantipora in south Kashmir's Pulwama district. In 2006, police arrested an LeT terrorist Khalida Akhter, who had undergone arms training in PoK in 2002. "She was sent back with a mission to befriend security forces and kill them,'' a police officer said. Khalida was provided a safe house in Srinagar from where she coordinated terrorist activities along with two of her associates.
In March 2008, police arrested two women Rafiqa Begum and Rubeena Begum after intercepting an ammunition-laden vehicle on its way from Doda to Qazigund in the Valley. "The two told their interrogators that they were assisting the terrorists for money. They also confessed to having delivered Rs 2 lakh hawala money to LeT commanders Abu Yasir and Mohammed Iqbal in Doda,'' SSP Manohar Singh said.