Speaking at the launch of his book, he said he believed that Kashmir was not an issue, but an excuse for Pakistan to seek legitimacy to its animosity towards India.
Former RAW chief Vikram Sood has said that peace talks with Pakistan were bound to fail till Pakistan Army changes its attitude towards India. Speaking at the launch of his book, he said he believed that Kashmir was not an issue, but an excuse for Pakistan to seek legitimacy to its animosity towards India. Sood went on to claim that the Army is the largest corporate sector in Pakistan. "It owns land, owns properties, runs fertiliser factories, runs bread factories, runs atta (wheat flour) factories... It also runs international logistic cell which supplies goons all over the country... (and)heroin," he said.
The book was launched by Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani along with former NSA Shivshankar Menon, former Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal, former MP Baijayant Panda and Observer Research Foundation (ORF) Chairman Sunjoy Joshi.
Later, while participating in the panel discussion, Sood said that a major difference between the Pakistan intelligence agency ISI and its Indian counterpart RAW was that the former was a policy maker in its country, while the role of the latter was limited to just a service provider. "And this is the big difference," he added.
Sood also stated, "We don't make policies, we don't make suggestions. It is the ISI which provides its country with strategic weightage in India and Afghanistan. So you have to accept these things when you talk about peace and tranquillity with Pakistan." He went on to say, "We don't have jihadi forces trying to disrupt lives elsewhere. We (RAW) are always finding ways to avoid war. We are providing our ministries and our defence personnel information so that they are aware and prepared to handle the situations."
Menon meanwhile stressed on the need to create a system to analyse the intelligence data and help take appropriate actions at the right time. Saying it is easy to blame intelligence agencies for terror attacks or infiltration, he said the government receives lots of intelligence inputs from various sources and what is lacking is a system to analyse the inputs. Former NSA was of the view that domestic intelligence agencies should be brought under a parliamentary oversight. Sibal, however, countered saying the need for legislative oversight had not yet arisen. Sunjoy Joshi pointed out there is no perfect oversight system, including in countries like the US and the UK.
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