Author: Indrani Bagchi
Publication: The Times of India b
Date: August 16, 2006
Introduction: UK plots unmasks Jamaat-ud-Dawa
terror role, Islamabad's quake relief cover blown
With investigations into the air terror plot
ripping apart the charity cover of Lashkar-e-Taiba's front, Jamaat-ud-Dawa,
Pakistan Is being shorn of its last major argument to defend the outfit.
During the home secretary talks between India
and Pakistan earlier this year, India for many asked for the Jamaat-ud-Dawa
(Lashkar-e-Taiba) boss, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, to be handed over to India,
a demand that was publicly articulated by the MEA spokesman a couple of months
later to the open fury of Pakistan.
Predictably, Pakistan turned down the demand,
refuting India's charge against Saeed by saying that since he was engaged
in charitable acts and earthquake relief, they couldn't possibly hand him
over.
In the light of the emerging facts that Pakistan
earthquake relief was probably diverted to fund terror, Indian officials are
now reflecting on the supreme irony that they were signing off $25 million
for Pakistan's earthquake reconstruction hours before LeT-Jaish suicide bombers
blew up Mumbai's trains.
Months before the western governments cottoned
on to JUD's act, a study by the International Crisis Group (ICG) confirmed
this fact. In its report, it said 17 out of Pakistan's 24 known Islamist groups
were involved in earthquake relief and reconstruction.
Says Jawad Qureshi of the ICG, "These
groups had a presence in every affected district of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir
in the Neelum and Jhelum valleys, including Muzaffarabad, Bagh, Hattian, Dhir
Kot, Rawalakot, Haveli and Athmuqam. In their response to the earthquake,
jehadi and Islamist 'humanitarian' groups drew on their existing infrastructure
in PoK, their knowledge of the local terrain and their close cooperation with
the Pakistan army, which provided logistical support and other facilities,
including helicopters, to enable the jehadis to continue their work."
Jamaat-ud-Dawa, along with the Al Rasheed
Trust and Al Khair Trust has been at the forefront of the relief efforts,
through its humanitarian arm, Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq, running field hospitals
in Muzzafarabad and Balakot. According to the ICG study, JUD distributed US
relief aid and an American surgeon operated in a JUD relief camp. JUD is reported
to have worked with ICRC, WHO, Unicef, WFP, UNHCR and Khalsa Aid. It claimed
that it received funding from Indonesia and Turkey. In fact, the JuD-LeT is
known to have provided support to the Jemaah Islamiyah.
The UN took the ultimate step in May 2005
of banning LeT and all its sister concerns for its links with Al Qaida, under
UN Resolution 1267. As per this resolution, all states are obliged to freeze
the assets, and prevent their entry into or transit through their territories.
The fact that this is yet to find any ground in LeT's home base, Pakistan,
has not escaped notice.
Over the years, LeT has emerged as the strongest
of the Al Qaida groups to operate in this country For that very reason, despite
numerous US bans on LeT and its aliases, America has, by and large, winked
at Pervez Musharraf segmenting Pakistan's terror apparatus into the anti-India
component, including LeT, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammed.
