BENGALURU: Former Pakistan president and chief of Army staff Late General Pervez Musharraf in 2010 in a reunion with his course mates at Stockholm Musharraf had told the veteran Indian Air Force (IAF) officer Air Marshal Philip Rajkumar that he and the former Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had “almost come to a solution” on the Kashmir issue. “I think he was referring to making the Indo-Pak border irrelevant. But Musharraf told me that he had to back out,” said AM Rajkumar, who was Musharraf’s course mate in the Royal College of Defence Studies, London in 1990.
Recalling his earlier reunion with his course-mates in Islamabad in 2005, when Musharraf was the president of Pakistan, the veteran IAF officer said they were hosted at the Presidential Palace in Islamabad and had visited Chitral, Khyber Pass, Muree and Takshila.
Recounting the bitter-sweet memories of his acquaintance with the late former Pakistani military ruler, AM Rajkumar said that at the Chitral Scouts Mess, he had a one-on-one meeting with Musharraf for 10 minutes during which he had asked the latter why he didn't make peace with India. "Musharraf had replied saying that before making peace with India, he would have to sell peace to his people, indicating the Pakistan Army. He told me yeh log nahi manengein (they won’t agree)," said the retired IAF officer.
"I had congratulated Musharraf when he was appointed as Chief of the Pakistan Army in 1998 and he had acknowledged. A year later he waged the Kargil war against us. In 2010, when I met him in Stockholm, I questioned him on Kargil and he told me that Kargil was a wake-up call to the world on the Kashmir issue," narrated Rajkumar.
The tactic of using ‘war gimmicks’ by Pakistan has always been to divert attention from their own crippling domestic issues and Musharraf was no exception.
“He was a typical service officer; golf-playing and fun-loving. He was street-smart. He had usurped power. It is impossible that he didn’t know about Osama Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad. We had gone past that house when we had visited the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul in 2005 during the reunion of coursemates in Islamabad on Musharraf’s invitation,” said Rajkumar.
Recounting their Pakistan visit in 2005, the retired IAF officer said that Musharraf had hosted them very well. “He was an excellent host. We were able to see places in Pakistan, where normal tourists may not be able to go. We met the Kalaash tribe in the remote areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They are said to be descendants of Alexander the Great. They are white-skinned, blonde and blue-eyed people. We saw the polo match between Chitral and Gilgit at 14,000 feet at Shandur. We were flown around in Pakistan Airforce aircraft,” said the retired IAF officer.