India facing 'proxy war' for last 26 years: Uday Bhaskar

Taking serious note of Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed describing killed Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani as an 'ameer' of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Defence expert Commodore (Retd.) C. Uday Bhaskar today said India is facing a proxy war for the last 26 years starting from the January of 1990.

"And the Lashkar-e-Taiba and other groups sponsored by the Pakistani intelligence agencies have been trying to weaken India through various strategies and very often it is referred to as bleeding the enemy by a thousand cuts. Now, Burhan Wani is an extension of this particular strategy and I think we in India sometimes make a mistake of thinking that each time it's a new challenge or a new issue, it is not," Commodore (Retd.) Bhaskar told ANI.

"India is facing a proxy war, that is the bottom line, and in this proxy war the internal and the external dimensions have got now in a way, they overlap. So, therefore, I think we have to have the ability to look at this issue in its entirety and unfortunately I would say that the Indian collective has not been able to make the appropriate appreciation which is why we look at Burhan Wani and the entire issue almost like a T-20 cricket match which I think is very unfortunate," he added.

Saeed, who masterminded the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, claimed at a rally in Pakistan earlier on Wednesday that an LeT militant was leading processions in Kashmir for Wani, who was killed in an encounter in Srinagar.

He further said that several people from Faisalabad had gone to Kashmir to 'lay down' their lives facing the Indian security forces.

Wani was among the three militants killed by the security forces in Anantnag, Jammu and Kashmir, earlier on July 8.