Banned JD running public campaign for relief funds

Jamaat-u­d-Dawa is running a campaign to collect donations for flood relief despite being declared a terrorist group.

LAHORE: The Jamaat-ud-Dawa is running a large, visible campaign to collect donations for flood relief work, even though it was declared a terrorist group by the United Nations and banned by Pakistan two years ago.

The group has set up 67 camps in the city, more than any other organisation, to collect relief goods and cash. Banners up at these camps proclaim they are run by the Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), which is the JD in a new guise. The camps are decorated with JD flags – a black sword on a background of black and white horizontal stripes – and have been up and running for three weeks.

JD is also sending mass text messages seeking donations, while its chief Hafiz Saeed has been giving speeches at small gatherings to raise money. He delivered a lecture at a building of a private college in Shahdara last Friday and collected more than Rs700,000.

The group has changed its organisational structure and name to get round bans before. It was launched in 1985 as the Markaz Aldawa Wal Irshad. In December 2001 the US state department put the Markaz’s militant wing, the Lashkar-i-Taiba, on its list of officially-designated terrorist outfits. Shortly before the Pakistan government banned LT in 2002, the Markaz announced it was disbanding LT operations in Pakistan. The militant activities of the group were then transferred to Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which was meant to be its wing for social reform.

JD was then implicated in the attack on Mumbai of November 2008 and banned by the government under pressure from the international community, but it has still been holding rallies in Pakistan under different names like Tehrik-i-Azadi-i-Kashmir and Terhik-i-Qibla-i-Awwal.

A source in the JD told The Express Tribune that there were some 450 FIF donation boxes placed at stores in Lahore and the group was sending out more. There are 67 JD relief camps in Lahore. The main camps are at Model Town C Block, Moon Market, Dubai Chowk, Samanabad Mor, Model Town Link Road, The Mall, Masjid Shuhada, Shahdara Chowk, and Niazi Chowk.

Despite their high visibility, the police have not shut down these camps. A JD activist at one relief camp said not a single policeman had asked them about the camp. “Once, officials of some secret agency approached us and asked for a sticker of the FIF. They then went away,” he said.

Lahore Capital City Police Officer Muhammad Aslam Tareen told The Express Tribune that he had ordered a crackdown on these camps two day ago, and there were no longer any JD flags visible in the city. He said he had ordered that all camps affiliated with extremist organisations be closed down. He did not say if the police had made any arrests.

Sources in the JD said that after the “so-called crackdown”, they removed their flags but the camps continued functioning all over the city.

Each camp is staffed by three JD workers who get small stipends. An activist at one camp said he had been working there for a month and been promised a monthly scholarship to go to college. He said JD workers got between Rs3,000 and Rs10,000 a month, depending on their religious knowledge and experience with the JD.

Another JD activist, Abi Waqas, told The Express Tribune that the group had sent five trucks loaded with relief goods to Muzaffargarh, five to Kot Addu and five to the Northern Areas, helping around 800,000 people. The relief goods included meals for Sehar and Iftar, dry food, drinking water, milk for infants, animal feed, tents, wash rooms, cash, clothes and shoes. He said the group had set up information centres to guide the survivors. They are also providing ambulances and other healthcare and emergency services, he said.

The JD is circulating an SMS to attract donors to their relief campaign.

An SMS received by this scribe read: “By the grace of God, Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation is providing full support to the flood victims and its activists are reaching the badly affected areas and are providing the victims with food, potable water, medicines, tents, clothes, etc.

For this noble cause we need your cooperation. In this month of blessings, you should give zakat, donations and charity in the way of God for the help of the victims. We pray that Allah be pleased with all of us and make us do something for his religion - Islam.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 1^st, 2010.