Ijaz says Yasin Malik lied before Pak Memo Commission on Monday

Washington, Mar 28 (ANI): Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz, the key man in the Memo Gate scandal, has said that Chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Muhammad Yasin Malik has lied while giving his testimony on Monday, because his meeting with then deputy director of India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), Chander D Sahay was a key turning point in bringing a permanent ceasefire in Kashmir.

Malik had earlier appeared before the commission investigating the Memo Gate scandal to record his statement in response to the allegations leveled by Ijaz claiming that Malik had a meeting with the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief.

Recalling the events which led to his meeting with Ijaz during a seminar in November 2000, Malik said that Ijaz had invited him for a lunch during which an Indian man showed up, The Express Tribune reports.

He said that Ijaz had introduced him as a businessman, but he left the meeting with the suspicion that the man was the RAW chief.

In a statement issued via email, Ijaz said that Malik had made many sacrifices for the Kashmir cause and it was because of this he had helped him achieve a "structural ceasefire with Indian security forces that brought peace to the Kashmir valley for an extended period."

It is thus even more unfortunate that Yasin allowed himself to be dragged into the Memorandum affair yesterday as a pawn in the unprecedented cover up being orchestrated by Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's former ambassador to the United States, and those still in power that he used to answer to, Ijaz added. (ANI)