MURIDKE: The Punjab government has given nearly one million dollars to institutions linked to Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a document has revealed.
It gave Rs79.7 million to schools, a mosque, hospital and other health facilities built on a campus in Muridke, said a budget document presented in the Punjab assembly this week. Another three million rupees were given to schools run by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which was put on the UN terror blacklist in December 2008.
The Punjab government denied giving any money to Jamaat-ud-Dawa, saying it had taken control of the institutions after the charity was banned in 2008. “These are now in control and run by the Punjab government,” Pervez Rasheed, a spokesman for Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, told AFP. “These grants were issued to run these social welfare projects including schools, hospitals and other institutions. People were benefiting from these facilities and that’s why we decided to continue them. “We have no sympathies with Jamaat-ud-Dawa. If we had closed all these institutions it would have been detrimental and might have given a boost to Hafiz Saeed. So we did all this for the people of the province,” said Rasheed.
Jamaat-ud-Dawa denied receiving any funds from the Punjab government. “We have not received any grant,” spokesman Yahya Mujahid told AFP. “The government has appointed an administrator and caretakers for the schools and other institutions, but the rest of the staff are the same, they are our people,” the spokesman said.
The revelations could raise fresh concerns about the charity just weeks after the Supreme Court quashed an appeal against the release from house arrest of Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed. India linked the charity to the 2008 Mumbai attacks and Washington views Jamaat-ud-Dawa as a terror group. One of Pakistan’s biggest charities, Dawa is known for its relief work after the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir. It denies all terror accusations. Despite being banned, the charity organises public rallies and runs offices across Pakistan under the name Tanzeem Falah-e-Insaniyat (organisation for the welfare of humanity). Saeed founded Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant faction blamed for the Mumbai attacks, but reportedly abandoned the faction when it was outlawed in Pakistan after India accused the group over the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament.
Published in the Express Tribune, June 18th, 2010.
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