Pakistan: Flood Relief work by the Muslim Right an opportunity to expand their influence

The Times of India, Aug 4, 2010


JuD key player in flood ops in Pak

by Omer Farooq Khan, TNN


ISLAMABAD: A natural disaster or calamity in Pakistan always provide an opportunity for religious groups, including the ones internationally blacklisted, to gain sympathies of the masses by indulging in relief activities.

Volunteers of several religious organizations rushed for the rescue efforts when last week's floods affected tens of thousands of people in northern Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The most significant groups which were at the forefront in relief activities were Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Jamaat-e-Islami's Al-Khidmat wing. Both organizations had established relief camps on roadsides in the towns of Charsadda and Nowshera and their activists were collecting funds and providing food and shelter to the affected people. Around 2000 volunteers of the JuD were helping the victims across the north western parts of Pakistan where according to UN estimate more than three million people have become homeless.

"JuD and Al-Khidmat have local setups and it is much easier for them to mobilize their workers, said Jamal Asghar, a JuD activist.

JuD is the extension of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the group India blames for the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The LeT was declared defunct by the former military ruler Pervez Musharraf in 2002. The organization was later renamed as Jamaat-ud-Dawa but its leaders deny it. In the aftermath of the Mumbai assault, the UN blacklisted JuD through its resolution. Under international pressure, Pakistan's government put its leader Hafiz Saeed under house arrest but the Lahore high court released him on the ground that there was lack of sufficient evidence against Hafiz Saeed in any terror related activity.

The relief activities in Charsadda and Nowshera towns are carried out by the Falah-e-Insaniyat wing of the JuD. The government's failure to cope with the situation brought the affected people closer to this organization, which had also played a crucial role last year, helping the people who were displaced by the military operations Swat and Waziristan.

The organization was also active in rescue efforts, when the October 2005 earthquake killed around 70,000 people in Pakistan's northern areas.

"If the government were doing this work, there would be no need for us," says Maqbool Shah, a JuD volunteer. "When the military operations displaced people we voluntarily helped the victims. Now, when floods came, we carried people out on our shoulders, to our own ambulances. Where were the government ambulances?" he remarked.

Yaya Mujahid, spokesman for JuD, said the group was working with Falah-e-Insaniyat. "We're present to help in all the places where the floodwaters have gone," said Mujahid.

Another religious group, Al-Khidmat Foundation, which is part of a mainstream radical party Jamat-e-Islami, was housing around 380 families left destitute by the floods, in two private school buildings in Charsadda.

"Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Al-Khidmat are helping us. They provided us clothes and shelter. We have not seen any help from the government," said Nabi Gul, a 58 years old victim who took refuge along with his family at a government school in Charsadda.

According to Charsadda's top administration official, Kamran Rehman Khan, around 500,000 people had been affected by the flooding in his district alone, out of a population of 1.7 million.