LAHORE: Barely a week after launching a countrywide crackdown on the Jamaatul Daawa (JuD) in line with the UN Security Council’s decision to outlaw it as a terrorist support organisation, the Pakistani authorities have stared easing restrictions placed on its activities and on the movement of the JUD leadership.
In a significant development, the Punjab government has allowed most of the 11 JuD leaders who had been placed under house arrest to come out of their homes and move freely to launch a drive against the banning of the Jamaat as a terrorist support group by the UNSC. Those of the JuD leader who have already been freed by the authorities despite the fact that they were placed under house arrest for one month include Maulana Abdul Aziz Ali, the ameer of the Muzaffarabad chapter of the JuD Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), Col (retired) Nazir Ahmed, the media advisor of the JuD in Rawalpindi, Dr Zafar Iqbal, the vice chancellor of the JuD University in Muridke and Yahya Mujahid, the central secretary information of the Jamaat.
However, the most glaring violation of the ban imposed by the UNSC was the Punjab government’s decision to allow the JuD holding a massive motor rally on the Mal, Road Lahore on Sunday to lodge protest over the banning of the Jamaat by the Pakistan government in line with the UN’s December 10, 2008 decision. Hundreds of the JuD activists led by Yahya Mujahid who were riding over 50 vehicles marched from the Nasir Bagh to the Lower Mall up to the Lahore Press Club. The marchers carrying banners and placards inscribed with their demands were raising slogans against the “unlawful” ban. Talking to newsmen at the end of the rally, Yahya Mujahid, who is also the spokesman for the JuD ameer Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, said the rulers, by banning the Jamaat, have actually bowed to the Indian and American pressures. Quiet interestingly, heavy contingents of the Punjab police escorted the JuD rally.
Meanwhile, it has been learnt that hardly a few hours before the State Bank of Pakistan issued instructions to freeze the JuD bank accounts across Pakistan in line with the UNSC decision, the Jamaat was able to transfer money out of most of its bank accounts. The banking sector sources say public lead-up to the UN action gave the Jamaatul Daawa ample time to transfer money out of most of its public bank accounts.
In a related development, while conceding for the first time that the Mumbai attacker Ajmal Amir Kasab was a Pakistani national, the authorities in Islamabad have floated a fresh thesis through an NGO, saying Kasab was actually detained in Nepal way back in 2006 before being handed over to the Indian agencies in the 2006 Mumbai terror attacks.
A Pakistani lawyer, C M Farooque, who is often hired by the Pakistani agencies to take up the cases of those Pakistani nationals who are arrested in India for one reason or the other, has claimed that a group of Pakistanis including Ajmal Amir Kasab, was arrested from Kathmandu in by the Indian agencies with the help of Nepalese forces. Addressing a news conference in Lahore, Farooque, who runs an NGO, ‘Voice of Human and Prisoners Rights’ (VOHPR) claimed that Ajmal Amir Kasab had actually gone to the Napalese capital on a legal visa for business purposes along with a few of his friends before being arrested there on charges of spying.
“I had subsequently challenged his arrest in the Nepalese Supreme Court and an application in this regard is already lying pending there in which a reply had been sought from the Nepalese forces and the Indian High Commission to explain the charges behind the arrest of Kasab and his associates. The Nepalese Supreme Court had repeatedly issued notices to the respondents to furnish their reply but they did not submit any reply, he added. To a question, however, Advocate Farooque said that he had filed the petition in the Nepalese Supreme Court in February 2008, despite the fact that Ajmal was arrested in 2006 as per his own claim.
To a question, the advocate said he had also written several letters to the Indian and the Pakistani governments to ensure the release of those arrested in Nepal. Besides, he said, he had addressed a press conference in Khatmandu to highlight the issue in which he had revealed that the Nepalese forces arrested Kasab and many others and they were being held at an unknown place, probably to use them for their ulterior designs at some later stage. The lawyer said that he was still pleading the case of Kasab and was scheduled to visit Nepal towards the end of December.
amir.mir1969@gmail.com