UK MPs-supported organisation using secret funding to promote Pak interests on Kashmir issue

London, August 13(ANI): The Justice Foundation, for which British MPs hosted events in Parliament, is alleged to have been promoting Pakistani interests in the long-running conflict between India and Pakistan over the disputed Kashmir region, using millions of dollars of covert funding.

On Tuesday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, a US citizen from Fairfax, Virginia, accusing him of running an organisation called the Kashmiri American Council while acting as an agent of a foreign power, The Telegraph reports.

Fai was also the director of the Justice Foundation based in Bloomsbury, central London, alongside three British men and two Indian nationals, one of them based in Saudi Arabia, the paper said.

US prosecutors claim that three "Kashmir Centers" in Washington, London and Brussels, are run on behalf of "elements of the Pakistani government, including Pakistan's military intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI)," it added.

The Justice Foundation has received messages of support from Tony Blair while prime minister, and set up a conference attended by Baroness Warsi, now co-chairman of the Conservative Party.

The British organisation claims it is a "non-partisan, non-governmental organisation that seeks justice and peace for the oppressed people of Jammu and Kashmir, not aligning itself with any of the political parties of India or Pakistan."

It "does not campaign for a resolution of the dispute in accordance with the wishes of either of those two countries," the foundation says, adding that it aims to "keep the issue of human rights and the conflict in Kashmir on the political and diplomatic agendas" and "through a variety of programmes it aims to educate politicians and the public."

The foundation hosted Maulana Fazlur Rehman, whose party- Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F)- is said to have links to the Taliban, during a controversial visit to Britain last year, the paper said.

Pakistan has fought a proxy war in Kashmir over a number of decades using fighters funded by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), some of whom have later turned to international terrorism. (ANI)