Terror funds rap on Canada group
TNN | Oct 4, 2018, 03.33 AM IST
The revelation, based on a government audit report, was published by one of Canada’s largest news outlets, Global News on October 1. The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) auditors in their report claimed that Islamic Society of North America (INSA)-Canada had acted as a “conduit” for other organizations and its resources “may have directly or indirectly, been used to support the political efforts of Jamaat-e-Islami and/or its armed wing Hizbul Mujahideen.”
The audit, conducted in 2011, covered years 2007 to 2009. Though the CRA conveyed the results of the audit to ISNA-Canada in 2014 but acted against the group only last month. The Canadian government has suspended the Mississauga-based charity for a year effective from September 12, according to Global News. The INSA-Canada, which runs mosques and provides religious services and funding to other Islamic charities, has also been asked by the Trudeau government to cease its overseas operations.
The Canadian government’s decision is significant in view of the diplomatically disastrous visit of Prime Minister Trudeau to India earlier this year. Trudeau was snubbed by the Indian government including Punjab chief minister Amrinder Singh over his appeasement of anti-India extremists especially Khalistani separatists. The action against the Islamic charity on the basis of a seven-year-old audit report on the years 2007 to 2009, seems to suggest that Trudeau is doing an image makeover, both domestically and internationally.
Incidentally, in 2007, there were around 500 terrorism- related incidents that left around 170 civilians and security personnel dead in the Kashmir valley, as per official data accessed by the TOI. However, militant separatism in Kashmir marked a visible shift in its strategy from 2008, with more youth taking up the seemingly less lethal weapon—stones—instead of joining banned terror groups. As a result, from 2008 to 2010, there was a drop in terror attacks and a significant rise in mass protests, stone pelting and street violence.
During the unrest over the Amarnath land dispute in 2008, there were over 350 incidents of clashes between rioting mobs and security forces, with 46 people dead. In 2009, nine people were killed in over 300 incidents of street violence and in 2010, 106 people were killed in over 1200 incidents of mob rioting.
After investigations into the 2010 violence, the Omar Abdullah government had claimed that it had evidence to prove that stone-pelters in Kashmir were funded both by separatist groups and terror outfits especially Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba. The J&K police had recovered street maps, dozens of SIM cards, fake press identity cards, letters, cheque books and account registers on the expenditure for stone-pelting incidents, from the kingpin of street violence, Irshad Ahmed.
As per the Canadian government audit report, INSA-Canada gifted $90,000 to the Relief Organization for Kashmiri Muslims (ROKM) and $46,000 to Kashmiri Relief Fund of Canada (KRFC). CRA has described ROKM as a charitable arm of Jamaat-e-Islami, a Pakistani group whose armed wing is Hizbul Mujahideen. KRFC, according to CRA, raises funds for ROKM. The website of ROKM claims that it is based in Islamabad, Pakistan and was founded in early 1990 “to contribute in the relief works and to provide aid to the affected families in the state of Azad & Jammu Kashmir and Occupied Kashmir.”
source URL: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/terror-funds-rap-on-canada-group/articleshowprint/66061595.cms
