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| MEN & MATTERS | | Jamaat-ud-Dawa for separatist stir in Kashmir | | B L KAK
Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa has no plans to give up its Kashmir line, which is loaded with anti-India accent and emphasis. Doubts, if any, in this regard have been set at rest by Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), one of the most feared militant groups in Kashmir.
Hafiz Saeed's recent interview to a foreign news agency has reaffirmed Jamaat-ud-Dawa's resolve to continue to help "freedom fighters" in Indian Kashmir. That he did not want to make public the type of assistance the "freedom fighters" in Kashmir will continue to receive from the Jamaat-ud-Dawa was borne out by the use of the term--"moral support"--when he was asked about his organization's involvement in Kashmir.
He was quoted as emphasizing that his charity "only gave moral support to those fighting foreign occupation" in Kashmir, Afghanistan and Iraq. That Hafiz Saeed has something up his sleeve is clearly indicated by his unexpected claim: He had severed his links with Lashkar-e-Toiba after Pakistan banned it in 2002. His anti-India sentiment seemed highly pronounced with his charge against Washington of pandering to India. Washington's decision branding the charity (Jamaat-ud-Dawa) he now runs as a terrorist organization has been interpreted by him as "all this is being done at the behest of India". The US State Department outlawed the Jamaat-ud-Dawa charity and one of its affiliates in the beginning of May this year.
Hafiz Saeed, a firebrand orator who once taught Islamic studies at an engineering university in Lahore, was also reported to have insited: "Jamaat-ud-Dawa is not involoved in any terrorist activty inside or outside United States. We don't have any direct quarrel or confrontation with America, but we want the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq be stopped".
The United States, on the other hand, insists that Jamaat-ud-Dawa is just a front. Listing Jamaat-ud-Dawa means freezing its assets in the United States effectively a symbolic but necessary first step. Happily for Hafiz Saeed, Pakistan has said that it will not ban the charity until the United Nations also proscribes Jamaat-ud-Dawa, even though Saeed's group is already on a Pakistani watchlist.
Washington clearly wants Pakistan to act faster against an organisation it says provides money and recruits for Lashkar. The Jamaat-ud-Dawa charity runs schools, hospitals, mosques as well as religious seminaries across Pakistan, and it boasts tens of thousands of followers even though it has no official register. According to the US State Department,Jamaat-ud-Dawa also has links with religious militant organisations in Southeast Asia and Chechnya.
Bangladesh has posed a piquant problem for India. The problem arises from Dhaka's unwillingness to permit New Delhi to go ahead with its work on fencing the Indo-Bangladesh border. Worse, whenever Indian labourers start using their hands for erecting fencing on several patches along the border, Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) swing themsleves in action. The process leads to suspension of construction work.
That the BDR personnel oblige Dhaka has been borne out by a set of developments in recent times. The Government of India has noticed, on more than one occasion, that the Bangladesh Rifles raise 1975 guidelines when it comes to constructing fences along the Indo-Bangladesh border. Delhi has conveyed to Dhaka that the 1975 border guidelines are "only guidelines which relate to the demoliton of defensive structures". New Delhi's stand is: These guidelines do not apply to the building of a fence.
The Government of India insists that the fence is a physical barrier intended to put a stop to smuggling and other illegal movement across the border. The BSF Director-General has told BDR Director-General that the fence has no defence potential whatsoever. The BDR chief has also been told, in unmistakable terms, that a misinterpretation of the 1975 border guidelines, which were drawn up in a spirit of friendship and understanding to guide the two forces, is stalling legitimate development activty.
It is offical: Indis is facing stiff resistance over the issue of border fencing at 265 patches. Security forces of the two countries differ on the perception of the boundary. Dhaka does not want India fence within 150 metres of the zero line. New Delhi, on the other hand, demands that it must be allowed to construct the fence where the topography demands.
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