For decades, the world has been fed a carefully packaged lie — that Pakistan’s so-called “jihad” in Kashmir is a noble, moral, almost spiritual struggle. That illusion now lies shattered, not by Indian dossiers or Western think tanks, but by a voice from within Pakistan itself. When Mufti Saeed Khan — a cleric with proximity to the inner circles of power and reportedly linked to Imran Khan — publicly admitted that Kashmiri women were coerced into exchanging sexual favours for a single roti, he didn’t just expose a crime. He exposed a civilization-level hypocrisy. Let that sink in. The very militants romanticized as “mujahideen,” projected as defenders of faith and freedom, were allegedly running a grotesque marketplace of human desperation — where hunger was weaponized, and dignity auctioned. This is not collateral damage. This is not the fog of war. This is systemic exploitation masquerading as holy struggle. And who stands behind this machinery of moral decay? The ever-deniable, ever-present shadow of the Inter-Services Intelligence — Pakistan’s deep state architect of proxy warfare. For years, India has maintained that terror groups operating in Kashmir are not organic uprisings but manufactured assets, funded, trained, and unleashed with strategic precision. Khan’s admission is not merely confirmation; it is an indictment. This is what Pakistan’s “Kashmir policy” truly looks like on the ground: not liberation, but degradation. Not resistance, but exploitation. Not jihad, but what can only be called predatory militarism wrapped in religious rhetoric. The most chilling aspect is not just the abuse itself, but the deliberate betrayal of the very people these groups claim to protect.
Kashmiri Muslim women — already displaced, vulnerable, and voiceless — were turned into commodities by those claiming to fight in their name. If this is a “freedom struggle,” then the word has lost all meaning. What makes this revelation particularly devastating is its origin. For years, Pakistan dismissed international human rights reports as propaganda. It rejected Indian evidence as politically motivated. But how does it now respond when the rot is exposed from within its own ideological ecosystem? Silence will not suffice. Denial will not hold. This is also a moment of reckoning for the global community. The same international circles that often sermonize India on human rights have shown a curious reluctance to confront Pakistan’s double game. The selective outrage now stands exposed. If even a fraction of these allegations had emerged against Indian forces, the global media would have erupted in moral fury. Yet here, where the perpetrators are non-state actors backed by a state, the response remains muted. Why? Because the narrative of “good militants” has been politically convenient. But that illusion is now bleeding out. India’s long-standing position — that the conflict in Kashmir is less about freedom and more about externally sponsored terror — gains renewed credibility. More importantly, it forces a moral clarity: you cannot champion human rights in Kashmir while turning a blind eye to those who systematically violate them under the banner of jihad. Mufti Saeed Khan may have intended to spark introspection within Pakistan. What he has instead triggered is global exposure. The mask has slipped. The mythology has cracked. And beneath it lies a brutal truth: this was never about Kashmir’s freedom. It was always about power, control — and, as now revealed, exploitation at its most inhuman level. Will Donald Trump, who vows to decimate terrorism worldwide, take note of this chilling confession? Or will he continue to indulge a state that has perfected the art of exporting terror while preaching victimhood? Will Washington keep entertaining Pakistan’s military establishment — led by Asim Munir — as a partner, even as its proxies stand exposed for crimes no civilized society can defend? The choice is stark. Either call this out for what it is — a state-enabled machinery of exploitation — or continue to romanticize a fiction that is now collapsing under its own rot.
