It does not require much investigation or analysis to prove that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is not really inclined to set his house in order when it comes to terrorism.Take his July 22 address to the nation. He seemed to be at pains to explain how Pakistan itself was a victim of terrorism.
He expressed anguish that terrorists were bringing bad name to Pakistan and the ummah. He went on to appeal to terrorists and extremists to give up their violence activities. The General was at his devious best, trying to hoodwink, his people and the international community by sidestepping the fact that he was the President of Pakistan and the Chief of Army Staff and had all the power to root out terrorism and extremism from his country's soil. But obviously, he has no such intentions.
Significantly, the July 22 address, coming a fortnight after the London blasts, is in contrast to what he said on January 12, 2002, wherein he announced the ban on Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba, adding that he would not tolerate any extremist or terrorist group to indulge in violence, both within Pakistan and outside. Nothing could be more ironic that at least one of the groups he had banned on January 12, JeM, was deeply involved, with junior officials from the Pakistan Air Force and intelligence agencies, on the two assassination attempts on President Musharraf himself.
Despite a crackdown on JeM, its leader Maulana Masood Azhar remains free. Azhar's one-time lieutenant, Syed Omar Sheikh, sentenced to death in the Daniel Pearl murder case three years ago but not executed for reasons best known to President Musharraf. He is also a prime suspect in the conspiracy to assassinate the President and the attack on the Indian Parliament. There are also reports in the Pakistan press of his involvement in the London blasts.
Another group which has enjoyed a better rapport with President Musharraf and his army is Lashkar-e-Toiba, which has been spreading its network across the world after September 11. After the ban, the LeT underwent a change in nomenclature and its leader Hafiz Saeed announced his resignation and the appointment of the new leadership. It was nothing but a ploy. For several months, Saeed remained free and carried out his mission of recruiting youngsters for his cause of jihad against Kashmir and the US. It was only after the Indian Government lobbied Washington after the Parliament attack to exert pressure on Pakistan to take a strong and decisive action against LeT and its chief that Saeed was arrested. Expectedly, he was not charged under the anti-terrorism laws but under the Maintenance of Public Order, a prohibitory law which has a maximum punishment of three months.
Saeed was freed after a year and has since been freely conducting prayers from a Lahore mosque every Friday. His sermons, published in the Pakistan Urdu press, have been replete with calls for jihad in Kashmir and elsewhere in the world. Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, one of the founding fathers of terrorism in Pakistan, has similarly been released after months of incarceration last year.
There are credible reports in the Pakistan press that terrorist groups like Hizb-ul Mujahideen, al Badr Mujahideen and Harkat-ul Mujahideen, besides LeT, have reopened many of their training camps. At least 13 such camps have been detected in the Manshera district alone in North West Frontier Province. The FBI, in one of its terrorist cases, stated that members of an Islamic militant group in California were being imparted military training at a Rawalpindi camp being run by a leading Pakistani militant outfit, Jamiatul Ansar, previously called Harkatul Mujahideen and formerly led by Khalil.
There has been no action on madarsas either. Not all of 10,000 and more madarsas are jihadis in their attitude and outlook. According to a recent estimate, there are about 13,000 to 15,000 madarsas in Paki-stan with an enrolment of 1.5 to 2 million.
President Musharraf had announced on January 12, 2002, that it would be mandatory for all madarsas to be registered under a new law. He threatened that madarsas indulging in extremist or terrorist activities would be shut down. Three years down the line, all that talk of madarsa reform has gone down the drain, literally, with the Education Ministry (Daily Times, July 26, 2007) stating that Rs 1.56 crore had been disbursed to madarsas for carrying out reforms without any visible impact. In fact, the newspaper reported that the issue of madarsa reform is caught in red tape between the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Ministry of Interior over jurisdiction.
The author is Senior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation.
Source: The Pioneer, New Delhi, July 31, 2005. * Views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Observer Research Foundation.
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