 |
||
|
||
|
||
After a year of relative silence, militant organisations are rearing their heads again in Pakistan, especially in the print media. Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JD), formerly the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is headquartered at Muridke near Lahore, has set up offices at Chauburji and in the military-administered upscale Defence Housing Authority neighbourhood in Lahore. Likewise, Maulana Masood Azhar's Jaish-e-Mohammad is now known as the Tehrik Khuddam ud-Din and is establishing new centres.
And though the Musharraf government banned a number of jehadi publications in February 2002, including the Jaish-e-Mohammad, Jehad Times and al-Hilal (the first two printed from Karachi, the third from Lahore), many of these publications have circumvented the law by a simple change of name: Jaish-e-Mohammed is now Shamsher and Jehad Times is Ghaiva Times. Islam Weekly, Zerb-e-Momin, Shamsher and Jehad-e-Kashmir and Mahaze-Kashmir can he picked up from the nearest newsstand.
According to estimates from a private marketing firm in Lahore, total circulation figures for all jehadi publications are around 10 lakh copies. Jamaat-ud-Dawa claims its Majalah-al-Dawana alone sells over 100,000 copies each month. Sources at the press that prints Majalah say the print run is between 50,000 and 65,000.
Among the 40-odd publications that suspected militant organisations are putting out are six weeklies, four fortnightlies and 30 monthlies. The publications are frequently in Urdu with a heavy dose of Arabic and some English thrown in. Deobandi publications dominate Karachi and Hizbul Mujahideen ones are popular in the market in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
Dcobandi and Ahl-e-Hadith followers believe photography is forbidden in Islam. Most of the publications steer clear from carrying pictures of living things the two exceptions being Jamaat-i-Islami linked al-Badr (printed in Karachi) and Jehad-e-Kashmir (printed in Rawalpindi), both of which publish gruesome photographs of slain jehadis. The literature is heavy on the virtues of dying for the cause of Islam and emotionally wrought letters from the mothers and sisters of jehadi martyrs. Many of the publications feature colour pictures of arms and ammunition and present a no-holds-barred, absolutist view of the world.
The prose can get paranoid. The Lahore-based monthly Majalah al-Dawana (November 2002) wrote: “The non-Muslims of the world, are uniting against us O brothers!” Routine calls to kill the “enemies of Islam” are common to almost all the publications.
Other publications are harder to
acquire and are available only through the special network of jehadi organisations.
They include al-Irshad (by Harkat-ul-Jehad al-Islami) and Sada-e-Mujahiden
(Harkat-ul-Mujahideen). Militant organisations have also discovered the
Internet. Lashkar-eTaiba (www.markazdawa.org) and Hizbul Mujahideen (www.hizbulmujahideen.org)
keep viewers posted on the latest casualties in “America's War”. Lashkar,
in fact, has gone truly hi-tech with the launch of its web-based radio
al-Jehad. (Courtesy The Friday Times, Lahore)
|
||
|
||
|
||