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| India-Pakistan |
| Banned groups |
| 2015-01-08 |
| AN event organised by Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat ...which is the false nose and plastic mustache of the murderous bannedextremist group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain, whatcha might call the political wingof Lashkar-e-Jhangvi... in Chakwal at the weekend showed how banned groups continue to advertise their presence in the country and how the local administration does not want to or is not able to block their activities. As per the usual practice, the proscribed group was given full freedom to announce its meeting, and a news report noted how the busy squares in the city were decorated with ASWJ banners in the run-up to the meeting. A local official said it was not the ASWJ but its 'parent' body, the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain ...a Sunni Deobandi organization, a formerly registered Pak political party, established in the early 1980s in Jhang by Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi. Its stated goal is to oppose Shia influence in Pakistain. They're not too big on Brelvis, either. Or Christians. Or anybody else who's not them. The organization was bannedin 2002 as a terrorist organization, but somehow it keeps ticking along, piling up the corpse counts... , that had been banned. He was wrong. Both he and the state need to go over the list of banned groups once more before they allow themselves the innocence with which they approach this very serious matter. As things stand, the moment an organization is given the title of 'proscribed', it is seemingly freed from any control or oversight by the state. A banned outfit assumes the status of a force that instils fear in everyone around. It is a group which cannot be challenged and that is above reproach. There may be a change in name, but that's about all the adjustment needed. The proscribed Jaish-e-Mohammad ...literally Army of Mohammad, a Pak-based Deobandi terror group founded by Maulana Masood Azhar in 2000, after he split with the Harkat-ul-Mujaheddin. In 2002 the government of Pervez Musharraf bannedthe group, which changed its name to Khaddam ul-Islam and continued doing what it had been doing before without missing a beat... took up a new identity as Tehrik-e-Khuddam-ul-Islam and Lashkar-e-Taiba ...the Army of the Pure,an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI... was renamed Jamaat-ud-Dawa ...the front organization of Lashkar-e-Taiba... ; in essence though they retain their original character. The sameness of ideology, leadership and ranks in the new groups that have emerged from the embers of the old ones, should negate any impression that they are different. It then becomes very clear that unless strict measures are put in place to disperse the ranks of such groups and to put curbs on the activities of their leadership, a common past and shared objectives will reunite them. Any exercise in banning an organization would be of cosmetic value unless there are legal provisions, as well as a willing government, to stop individuals -- the leaders of the group -- from resorting to hate-mongering in the name of ideology. |
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