New Delhi:
The Indian government has rubbished ISI lobbyist Ghulam Nabi Fai's claims that he had met several Indian Cabinet ministers on a regular basis during the last two decades.
The US-based Kashmiri lobbyist has also claimed that he had "a channel of communication" open with the Indian Embassy and that he met officials posted there as part of his strategy to communicate with New Delhi on the Kashmir issue.
But sources in the government said that they did not want to dignify Mr Fai's claims with a comment. They said that he was totally discredited, and that nobody should believe his claims.
The 62-year-old Mr Fai, who heads the Kashmiri American Council (KAC), last week pleaded to charges of being an ISI agent, receiving funds from the agency through clandestine routes and illegally lobbying the Congress to influence American policy on Kashmir,
In his statement titled 'Why Kashmir is Important to Me?', the 62-year-old Mr Fai claims that he, along with Ambassador Yusuf Buch, former Senior Advisor to the UN Secretary General and late Ayub Thuker, President, World Kashmir Freedom Movement, had met Indian Cabinet Ministers belonging to the governments headed by Chandra Shekhar, Narasimha Rao, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh.
"And during the past eleven years, I also met with four different officials at the Indian embassy who succeeded each other periodically and introduced me to the new incoming official before leaving for a new post," said Mr Fai in the statement issued at a Virginia court last week.
He, however, did not name these ministers and officials.
Mr Fai said that he met these officials each month and, at times, twice a month. "Whenever we had a seminar or a conference on Kashmir, I would invite the Indian Ambassador to speak," he said, "I had a habit of exchanging information and establishing the details in advance with an official of the embassy, and then a final copy of the invitation for the Ambassador would be given to the official, whom I usually met at a public cafeteria," he said.
"An Indian official called me either on July 18 or July 19, 2011, the day I was arrested. He left a voicemail that we must meet, which I heard 10 days later after my release," Mr Fai said.
Conceding that he has made "personal mistakes" and he deeply regrets and feels great sorrow for that, Mr Fai claims that his fight was for the cause of an independent Kashmir, which is quite contrary to the guilty plea that he was an agent of the ISI and was dictated by the Pakistan spy agency in terms of what he would write, speak and invite guests to his seminars.
Mr Fai's sentencing is scheduled for March 9.
(With PTI inputs)
The US-based Kashmiri lobbyist has also claimed that he had "a channel of communication" open with the Indian Embassy and that he met officials posted there as part of his strategy to communicate with New Delhi on the Kashmir issue.
But sources in the government said that they did not want to dignify Mr Fai's claims with a comment. They said that he was totally discredited, and that nobody should believe his claims.
The 62-year-old Mr Fai, who heads the Kashmiri American Council (KAC), last week pleaded to charges of being an ISI agent, receiving funds from the agency through clandestine routes and illegally lobbying the Congress to influence American policy on Kashmir,
In his statement titled 'Why Kashmir is Important to Me?', the 62-year-old Mr Fai claims that he, along with Ambassador Yusuf Buch, former Senior Advisor to the UN Secretary General and late Ayub Thuker, President, World Kashmir Freedom Movement, had met Indian Cabinet Ministers belonging to the governments headed by Chandra Shekhar, Narasimha Rao, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh.
"And during the past eleven years, I also met with four different officials at the Indian embassy who succeeded each other periodically and introduced me to the new incoming official before leaving for a new post," said Mr Fai in the statement issued at a Virginia court last week.
He, however, did not name these ministers and officials.
Mr Fai said that he met these officials each month and, at times, twice a month. "Whenever we had a seminar or a conference on Kashmir, I would invite the Indian Ambassador to speak," he said, "I had a habit of exchanging information and establishing the details in advance with an official of the embassy, and then a final copy of the invitation for the Ambassador would be given to the official, whom I usually met at a public cafeteria," he said.
"An Indian official called me either on July 18 or July 19, 2011, the day I was arrested. He left a voicemail that we must meet, which I heard 10 days later after my release," Mr Fai said.
Conceding that he has made "personal mistakes" and he deeply regrets and feels great sorrow for that, Mr Fai claims that his fight was for the cause of an independent Kashmir, which is quite contrary to the guilty plea that he was an agent of the ISI and was dictated by the Pakistan spy agency in terms of what he would write, speak and invite guests to his seminars.
Mr Fai's sentencing is scheduled for March 9.
(With PTI inputs)
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