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| Lashkar founder is a free man | | Islamabad unwilling to oblige Lahore adminstration | | B L KAK
NEW DELHI, OCT. 28: Islamabad is said to be unwilling to accept the demand of the local administration in Lahore for re-arrest of Hafiz Mohamed Saeed, founder of the dreaded Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and chief of the controversial Islamic charity, known as Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Pakistan's Punjab government, which voiced the demand twice soon after the recent release of Hafiz Saeed, has, according to a set of media reports from Lahore, failed top garner Islamabad's support.
Worse still, Pakistan's all-powerful organisation, the ISI (Inter Services Intelligence), has deputed its own men to ensure protection of Hafiz Saeed. The High Court in Lahore recently ordered his release, in spite of the apparent efforts of Pakistan's Punjab government to keep him under detention. And according to uncontradicted reports from across the border, the Pakistani government did not build a strong case against him.
Wasim Ahmad Shah, a legal affairs correspondent for Dawn, wrote: "The case revolved around two points-- that Saeed was engaged in collecting donations for nefarious ends, and that his activities were damaging Pakistan’s relations with its neighbours". On both counts, the Pak government did not produce any evidence on record, he says. Hafiz Saeed was taken into custody on August 10 amid mounting international pressure to curb his activities. His detention came under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) law that grants sweeping powers to detain suspects without laying any specific criminal charges against them.
Pakistan proscribed Lashkar-e-Toiba in January 2002, months after the US put it on its list of terrorist organisations. But it has refused to follow the US lead in proscribing Jamaat-ud-Dawa as well, insisting it has no links with militancy in the region. That is a conclusion that has raised eyebrows in Pakistan where the links between the militant and social welfare wings of some groups are often not clear. Since 9/11, some organisations banned by the US or Pakistan have continued to operate under different aliases, portraying themselves as welfare rather than militant outfits.
In some cases it appears that the Pakistani authorities have turned a blind eye when militant groups have simply renamed themselves and continued operating as before. The Lashkar-e-Toiba/Jamaat-ud-Dawa combination would appear to be one such case. Lashkar-e-Toiba was an outgrowth of Jamaat-ud-Dawa wal-Irshad, a preaching, publishing and propaganda network set up by Hafiz Saeed for the jihad (holy war) in Afghanistan in 1985. Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian scholar and one of the earliest Arab ideologues of jihad in Afghanistan, was a co-founder.
Islamabad has not denied reports that Hafiz Saeed raised Lashkar as the militant wing of the organisation in early 1990s, when many militant groups started shifting from Afghanistan to Kashmir after the Soviet Union had pulled out of Afghanistan. Subsequently, the Lashkar’s rise as a major Pakistani group operating in Kashmir is widely credited to Saeed’s close links with the Pakistani military and the intelligence services. The group also had access to huge funds from Middle Eastern mosques and a country-wide network to raise donations locally.
After 9/11, the group came under increasing international pressure, principally because of its involvement in some high-profile attacks in Jammu and Kashmir and cities in India. The Indians blamed the group for bomb attacks in Mumbai and Delhi in 2003 and 2005. It was also named in connection with armed raids on Delhi’s Red Fort in December 2000 and on the Indian Parliament a year later.
Days before Lashkar was proscribed by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in January 2002, Hafiz Saeed revived the group’s parent organisation, Jamaat-ud-Dawa wal-Irshad, and amended its name. The name of Lashkar-e-Toiba was replaced with that of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, as it is now called, on the signboards of the group’s offices and recruiting centres across Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). But there was no significant change in the nature of its activities. Their offices continued to recruit fighters for militant training camps occupied by Lashkar-e-Toiba in Pakistani Kashmir.
Since it was banned, Lashkar-e-Toiba has experienced some defections from its ranks by elements not happy with Pakistan’s policy of easing tensions with India. These elements believe that Hafiz Saeed follows too closely the policies of President Pervez Musharraf, rather than sticking to the aim of ending Indian control over Kashmir. Some Pakistan-watchers agree that Lashkar has remained more loyal to Islamabad’s policies than other militant groups fighting in Kashmir. They argue that blaming Hafiz Saeed for damaging Pakistan’s relations with neighbouring countries may please India. But getting him back under detention may not be a high priority objective.
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