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Lashkar-e-Taibaâs medical wing
All this sounds very noble, except for the fact that Jamatud Dawah controls the Lashkar-e-Taiba.The ad-Dawah Medical Mission is the most important project of Jamatud Dawah, the assumption being that doctors make the best preachers It was probably the first time in Pakistanâs history that around 600 doctors and students of medical colleges from around the country gathered in a mosque (in Lahore) and shared their knowledge about the recent medical researches and possibilities of providing medical assistance to the poor and needy at their doorsteps for two days. There were lessons on the Quran and Hadith in between these sessions. During these lessons, the speakers, including Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Hafiz Abdur Rehman Makki, and Abdus Salam Bhutvi, talked about different Islamic themes and asked the attentive and receptive audience to follow the Islamic tenets in their private and professional lives. The occasion was a different kind of conference -- the first Islamic Medical Conference. The first Islamic Medical Conference on May 1 and 2 was organised by the Jamat ud Dawahâs department of Khidmat-i-Khalq and held at the Jamia Masjid al-Qadsia in Lahore, the new headquarters of the Jamatud Dawah. This article sheds a different light on the Lashkarâs recruitment of doctors, since they are meant to act as combat medics on the fields of Jihad, although obviously that doesnât preclude them from helping other sick or injured people in Pakistan. Jamatud Dawahâs department of Khidmat-i-Khalq has been quite active over the last couple of years. In addition to providing medical assistance, it is implementing a large number of social welfare projects such as digging wells and providing stitching machines to widows around the country. Its monthly budget during the last 14 months has averaged more than Rs 3.5 million, almost twice as much as it was spending previously, the official sources of the Jamat claim. The ad-Dawah Medical Mission is Khidmat-i-Khalq departmentâs most important project. Jamatud Dawah, or its predecessor Markaz Dawat wal Irshad, has always been interested in providing medical facilities to the poor. It founded the Taiba Hospital in Muzaffarabad in the early 1990s to provide medical assistance to the needy, including refugees from the Occupied Kashmir. The hospital has grown to be a 26-bed hospital. According to official sources of the Markaz, around 9,000 outdoor patients visit this hospital every month to get free of cost or very inexpensive medical support. In spite of being a charity, it is considered to be the best private hospital in Azad Kashmir. The Jamatud Dawah also founded another hospital at the Markaz Taiba in Muridke. The official figures of the Markaz claim that around 2,000 students study at the Taiba Educational Complex at the Markaz Taiba in Muridke. Every month, around 6,000 patients get free of cost or inexpensive medical support from this hospital, the sources claim. A new building to house a 100-bed hospital is being built at Muridke. And since much like itâs education system, Pakistanâs health system is in a state of collapse, they will have plenty of people to influence. According to Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the department of Khidmat-i-Khalq is planning to expand its area of operations even outside the country. "It has already sent relief goods worth 1.88 million to the Iranian city of Bam after an earthquake hit it. It has been sending relief goods and meat of the sacrificial animals to Afghanistan and Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. It offered to send relief goods to help the people in Bhoj in the Indian Gujrat after an earthquake devastated the region but the Indian government declined the offer. It is currently planning to extend its relief operations to the stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh in the coming months," he said. The basic objective of the first Islamic Medical Conference was to extend dawat (proselytise) to the medical community of Pakistan to join the Jamatud Dawah in its mission of khidmat-i-khalq. Hafiz Abdur Raoof further said that the participating doctors and medical students can further the mission of the ad-Dawah Medical Mission by working for just for one hour at any one of the ad-Dawah medical hospitals and dispensaries. The doctors are not supposed to offer treatment just for bodily ills; they also offer dawat to all their patients. They ask their Muslim patients to become better Muslims and non-Muslim patients to convert to Islam. There is no apparent coercion as the provision of medical assistance is not conditional on accepting the dawat of the ad-Dawah Medical Mission. Like in other sectors, the Jamatud Dawah has been active among medical students. The association these students build with the Jamatud Dawah as students continues forever in most of the cases. For instance, Dr Ahmed Daud, an eye specialist and the vice-chairman of the Ad-Dawah Medical Mission became associated with the Markaz Dawat wal Irshad when he was a student at the Allama Iqbal Medical College in Lahore. He never wavered in his commitment to the mission of the Jamatud Dawah since then. This story supports a comparison I have been thinking about between Hezbollah and Lashkar-e-Taiba. Both are running elaborate social welfare systems, while maintaining a militia of thousands and a terrorist structure. They both have cells spread throughout the world, and operate as the proxies of the intelligence agencies of either Iran or Pakistan. Posted by: Paul Moloney 2004-05-10 |
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