Religious outfits mount massive relief operations

ISLAMABAD: Just as officials struggle to cope with the flood situation and try to reach tens of thousands of flood victims across the country, banned outfits like the Jamaatud Dawa and Minhajul Quran or the charity groups affiliated with religious groups are gaining popularity and spreading goodwill by mounting massive rescue and relief operations.

But the most surprising element in all this is the emergence of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid as a welfare organisation.

Lal Masjid’s charity arm, al Qasim Foundation, has already delivered several consignments of relief goods to the flood-hit people in Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa.

Lal Masjid’s chief cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz said: “We can accomodate about 10,000 women (and children) in…(two dozen) branches of Jamia Hafsa,” Maulana Abdul Aziz told The Express Tribune on Saturday.

The foundation was set up by slain cleric Abdul Rasheed Ghazi after the 2005 earthquake, with a large network of volunteers belonging to the Islamabad-based Jamia Faridia, the men’s seminary
of the mosque.

Another active organisation is Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, the public welfare wing of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed’s Jamaatud Dawa (JuD), run by Hafiz Abdul Rauf, one of his close associates.

Volunteers of al Khidmat Foundation of the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Minhaj Welfare Foundation of Allama Tahirul Qadri are also working to help people.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 8^th, 2010.