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| India-Pakistan |
| Rage of the rags |
| 2003-08-01 |
| A look at the way that Jihadi groups recruit and send young men off to their deaths for a couple hundred dollars. If you look at Jihad as a business, and the emirs if these groups want to maintain their luxurious lifestyles and stay in their mansions, then it is a very cost effective way of ensuring that the Jihad will continue and the money will keep being sent their way. However, Liaquat Ali, a supervisor at a pulse-grinding mill in Faisalabad suburbs, has something different to relate. "These jehadi organisations exploit religious sentiments to get one involved in their activities," says Liaquat. "My son’s only fault was that he was an innocent and religious-at-heart boy. They made use of his religious mind and got him killed in held Kashmir about six years back when he was just 18 years old," bitterly says Liaquat Ali, originally a resident of a far-off village of tehsil Fort Abbas. After passing his matriculation examination, Wasim Akhtar — Liaquat’s eldest son — had come to Faisalabad to seek employment in some mill or factory. Soon he got job as a helper in a textile mill, but miles away from his father’s workplace. "There he met some people of a militant organisation and I don’t know how they got him engaged in their activities," says Liaquat Ali, the father of five. "Wasim used to come to see me every weekend, but he suddenly disappeared. I made all efforts to trace him in Faisalabad and also asked from his mother back in my village, but couldn’t find him," Liaquat added. After about one month’s disappearance, Wasim telephoned his cousin Muhammad Shafiq at his shop in Marot, a sub-tehsil of Fort Abbas situated at about 11 kilometres away from Liaquat’s village. "Instead of Punjabi, he was speaking Urdu as if somebody was dictating him," says Shafiq, a turbine technician. "Wasim told me that they were at a training camp in Azad Kashmir and that he was going to sacrifice his life in the name of Allah. I insisted him to give me his address or exact location in Azad Kashmir as his parents were really worried about him, but he disconnected the line," Shafiq recalls. Later, through the monthly bulletin of the jehadi group, they came to know that Wasim was killed in a clash with Indian forces in held Kashmir. "I saw the picture of my son in the bulletin and knew about his death; otherwise, it was not possible to recognise him. They had changed his name to Commander Abu Turab," Liaquat Ali says. In the account, they claimed that Abu Turab was a non-Muslim; he first embraced Islam and then martyrdom while fighting the Indian occupation forces in the held valley. "They claimed so because my son (Wasim) belonged to a sect different from theirs and they had first convinced him to ’convert’ and then go for jehad," explains Liaquat Ali. Allah Bakhsh’s (not real name) story also strengthens this opinion. A resident of Bahawalpur, this Seraiki speaking man of over 60 years was father of five boys and six girls. His two sons have been killed in Kashmir jehad until now and he is ready to offer more. His other two sons have also acquired training and they are willing to go for jehad whenever their leaders ask for that. Allah Bakhsh publicly eulogises sacrifices of his sons for the cause of Allah, but privately mourns their deaths. "What else could I do? My daughters were getting late to get married and my sons were jobless. Then how could I resist the offer for five or six thousand rupees a month for sending my sons for jehad," the old man is stated to be telling his close friends. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |
| #2 Selling your kid's lives is not a way to insure your own longevity. This is utterly pathetic and sad. |
| Posted by: Ben 2003-8-1 5:47:40 AM |
| #1 these types of stories should be repeated loud and wide throughout the muslim lands as a form of counter-terrorism psy-ops. Imagine the worried parents: don't get involved with those groups - when you die they won't even call you a muslim! This type of story could really damage the culture of recruitment |
| Posted by: Anon1 2003-8-1 4:22:39 AM |