EXCLUSIVE: Pakistan Funding Terror in Kashmir Through Student Scholarship Program, Indian Investigator Says

A house in which militants are suspected to have sheltered is in flames after a gunfight happened between rebels and Indian security forces that killed four soldiers, in South Kashmir's Pulwama district, about 10 kilometers away from the spot of recent suicide bombing, on Feb. 18, 2019. An investigator has pointed out that MBBS seats sold to Kashmiri students in Pakistan are being used to fund terror activities. STR/AFP via Getty Images

NEW DELHI—Pakistan is funding terrorism in Indian-administered Kashmir through a medical scholarship program, according to an Indian investigator.

The accusation adds to a long-held Indian claim that Pakistan is backing separatist militants in the region, which is one of the world’s most dangerous geopolitical flashpoints.

The official program, the Pakistan Technical Assistance Program (PTAP), sponsors family members of slain jihadist separatists in India-administered Kashmir to study medicine in Pakistani universities, Abhinav Pandya, an independent investigator, told The Epoch Times.

The program also accepts candidates recommended by Kashmiri separatist leaders, he said. Pakistan’s intelligence service has allocated these scholarships across several separatist groups who then charge Kashmiri students to receive recommendations, allowing these organizations to raise funds to support their militant activities in the region, according to Pandya, a counterterrorism analyst with field research experience in Kashmir.

A report on his investigation, obtained by The Epoch Times, states that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) allocated 100 medical degree placements for the 2020–21 academic year to five separatist organizations. These groups charged students between $26,000 and $33,000 for each spot.

Police personnel (R) escort Indian Kashmiri students carrying their belongings as they prepare to return to their colleges in Pakistan, at the India–Pakistan Attari–Wagah border post about 35 kilometers from Amritsar, India, on Sept. 30, 2020. Narinder Nanu/AFP via Getty Images

Through this “sophisticated method” of raising funds, the separatist outfits have already generated more than $1 million this past year, according to Pandya.

During the past decade, Kashmir, which is home to 1 percent of India’s population, received 10 percent of the country’s development budget, while larger states such as Uttar Pradesh, which has a population of more than 200 million people and a higher rate of poverty, got far less development aid, he said.

“The aid and subsidy provided by the center form the key component of the economic lifeline of Kashmir,” Pandya said. “However, the locals use the same money to buy [bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery] seats in Pakistan. A large part of the federal aid ends up oiling the engine of the [Pakistani]-backed terrorist ecosystem.”

More funds are expected to be generated, as 100 more seats will be allocated soon for the next school year, according to Pandya.

The spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for details about how students from Indian-administered Kashmir are enrolled under PTAP.

Beneficiaries

According to the investigation, 21 scholarship spots under PTAP for the 2020–21 academic year were assigned to Islamist group Jamaat-e-Islami and other small organizations, which would have netted them about $550,000 for that year.

India banned Jamaat-e-Islami under the country’s anti-terror laws in 2019, citing the group’s ties to militant organizations. In 2021, India’s counterterrorism agency conducted raids on more than 50 locations allegedly connected to the group in Kashmir and Jammu as part of a terror funding probe.

U.S. Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) has previously sounded the alarm on the Islamist group’s influence across South Asia, saying it’s tied to separatist violence in Kashmir.

“Through violent actions, JeI seek to silence the voices of others and discourage participation in democracy. Much of the violence in Kashmir is linked to the organizations related to Jamaat-e-Islami and its terrorist partners,” Banks said during a 2019 seminar hosted by the Middle East Forum, a Philadelphia-based think tank.

He also introduced a resolution (pdf) in 2019 calling attention to Jamaat-e-Islami and affiliated theocratic extremist groups that it states “pose an immediate and ongoing threat to stability and secular democracy in South Asia.”

Pandya said that his investigation shows that the ISI has directed Jamaat-e-Islami and other separatist organizations inside Jammu and Kashmir to generate funds through the scholarship program for the purpose of “creating unrest” in the region.

Of the remaining scholarship placements for the 2020–21 academic year, 32 spots were allocated to United Jihad Council (UJC), 21 for All Party Hurriyat Conference, six for the Geelani Hurriyat group, and six for the Mirwaiz Hurriyat group, according to the investigation.

The UJC is an umbrella organization of various jihadist outfits, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Hizbul Mujahideen. The council is headquartered in Pakistani-administered Kashmir and is headed by the leader of Hizbul Mujahideen, Syed Salahuddin, who has been labeled by the United States as a “specially designated global terrorist.”

UJC’s Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Jaish-e-Mohammad have been designated by the United States as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” and are also banned terrorist organizations in India.

A copy of a letter dated Feb. 1, from the Section Officer of the PTAP section of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the Pakistani Government with the list of 37 selected Kashmiri candidates for admission in the first year of MBBS. Names are blurred to protect the candidates' identities.

For the 2021–22 school year, 37 students from Indian-administered Kashmir were awarded the PTAP scholarship, according to a Feb. 1 letter obtained by The Epoch Times from a PTAP Section Officer of Pakistan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs to the secretary of the Specialized Healthcare & Medical Education Department of the Punjab provincial government.

The letter was also copied to Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior, a director and assistant director at Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the president of the Pakistan Medical Commission, and other government officials in Pakistan.

Kashmir students have been able to participate in the Pakistani scholarship program despite the fact that the two countries don’t permit citizens to travel to each others’ territories on student visas—and despite warnings by Indian authorities to Kashmiri students against taking up such plans.

“However, students are bypassing the procedure by traveling on tourist visas for attending the sponsored programs,” Pandya said, pointing to recent reports of about 57 Kashmiri youth who went to Pakistan for higher education between 2017 and 2018 on tourist visas and became terrorists, with some even returning to Kashmir with arms.

Militant groups have used various sophisticated rackets to generate funds for their operations in Kashmir for about two decades, according to Pandya. But India only started seriously looking into this issue in 2010, when it established its counterterrorism body, the National Investigation Agency. The agency started to put a greater focus on enforcement efforts in 2014.

In late 2021, Indian authorities filed charges against nine separatists for allegedly illegally selling medical degree placements in Pakistan to Kashmiri students. Authorities said the separatists were involved in several instances where parents were forced to pay extra for the placements or were duped into paying for the spots.

A policeman checks documents of Indian Kashmiri students as they return to their colleges in Pakistan, at the India–Pakistan Attari–Wagah border post, about 35 kilometers from Amritsar, India, on Dec. 30, 2020. Narinder Nanu/AFP via Getty Images

Controversy

The alleged sale of medical degree placements to generate funding for militant activities in Kashmir previously came to light after a senior Kashmiri separatist leader resigned in 2020, alleging differences over financial matters with other separatist factions.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the chairperson of All Party Hurriyat Conference, one of the separatist organizations involved in the scheme, resigned, alleging “financial irregularities” in one of the organization’s chapters.

Hurriyat sources told The Indian Express, a leading Indian daily newspaper, that these financial irregularities were over the alleged sale of medical degree seats in Pakistan. Geelani’s own granddaughters allegedly studied medicine in Pakistan under this program, according to the newspaper. After the issue of alleged corruption surfaced, the All Party Hurriyat Conference stopped issuing recommendation letters to Kashmiri students in 2018.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Pakistan Foreign Ministry about the allegations, but didn’t receive a response by press time.

The resulting uproar in India led New Dehli to start derecognizing some of these courses and increase scrutiny on Kashmiri students crossing its borders. This has resulted in the Pakistani establishment continuing the operations through different routes, according to Pandya.

“So now they are sending these Kashmiri students to Gulf countries like Dubai, Saudi, Turkey, and from there, they are routed to Pakistan, where they’re studying these courses,” he said.