VHP warns CIA for attaching militant tag to its organisation

Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Friday threatened to launch an international movement against the CIA if it doesn’t change its classification of the Hindu group as a religious militant organisation.

CIA names VHP, Bajrang Dal as ‘religious militant organisations’ in World Factbook
The CIA, in its recent edition of the World Factbook, categorised VHP and Bajrang Dal under “political pressure groups”, defined as organisations that are involved in politics or that exert political pressure but whose leaders do not stand for elections.
The CIA annually publishes a World Factbook which feeds intelligence or factual reference material on a country or issue to the US government. This includes information on the history, people, government, economy, energy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues. Data is available for 267 countries.

The VHP said it’s a nationalist group which works for the betterment of the country, and called the CIA’s allegations “baseless” and “false”.

In a statement, the VHP said the US intelligence agency was responsible for creating Osama bin Laden, and had “no moral right” to lecture it.

It pointed to the map of India the CIA uses (which shows significant portions of Jammu and Kashmir as non-Indian territory), and said this “vindicated” the agency’s “anti-India mindset”.