Times Online
December 14, 2008
Blacklist terror charity still open in Pakistan
The Markaz-e-Taiba complex of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa organisation remains open in Muridke, Pakistan, despite being terror blacklisted by UN
Jeremy Page, in Muridke, Pakistan
The main complex of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), the Pakistani charity linked to last month's attack on Mumbai, is still open four days after the U.N. Security Council placed the group on a terrorist list, the Times has learned.
Pakistani officials say they ordered the closure of JuD's facilities on Thursday under pressure from India and the United States, which see it is a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) – the militant group blamed for the Mumbai attack.
But when The Times visited the Markaz-e-Taiba complex in the town of Muridke, 30 miles from the eastern city of Lahore, this afternoon it was functioning as normal and there was no sign of any police presence.
Most of the 1,600 students at the complex were away for last week's Eid holidays, but a dozen or so staff members and about 40 others were moving freely around the buildings, none of which was sealed.
"We have not had any official communication about closing," Mohammed Abbas (also known as Abu Ahsan), the 34-year-old administrator of the complex, told The Times.
"A lot of parents have been calling, afraid that it will be closed or there could be some violence, but we are telling them to send their children back."
He said that about 80 armed police had visited the complex on Wednesday night, but they left after half an hour when the guards told them that the students were away for the holidays.
"If I had been there, I'm sure they would have taken me," said Mr Abbas, who was in Lahore when the police visited. He said he spoke to the local police chief at the time.
The half-hearted police raid is certain to feed Indian -- and Western -- skepticism about the Pakistani government's crackdown on JuD, which is led by Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the founder of LeT.
Pakistani police placed him under house arrest on Thursday after he and four colleagues were added to the U.N. terrorist list. His house was surrounded by police, who barred entry when The Times visited.
They have shut down JuD's offices in Lahore, which The Times also verified, and in several other cities, and conducted a high profile raid on one of its complexes in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
However, Pakistani authorities fear they could spark a public backlash by closing down JuD's network of educational and healthcare facilities, which support tens of thousands of people around Pakistan.
JuD and its allies are already stoking public resentment about the U.N. decision to add it to the terrorist list before India has presented Pakistan with evidence of its role in the Mumbai attacks.
"The whole international community is acting very hurriedly," said Abdullah Muntazir, a JuD spokesman, who said he had not been arrested, but dozens of other JuD leaders had been.
"Justice hurried is justice denied," he told The Times.
Mr Saeed founded JuD in 1986, with Saudi money, as a charity designed to spread the ultra-conservative Wahabi school of Islam by providing poor Pakistanis with education, healthcare and disaster relief.
He also founded LeT in 1989 with the explicit goal of fighting Indian rule in Kashmir and forged close ties with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
When Let was banned in 2002, after its militants attacked the Indian parliament the year before, it continued to function under the banner of JuD, according to Indian and Western officials.
But JuD also continued with its social work, establishing a network of 153 healthcare centres, eight hospitals, 160 schools and 50 madressahs. It now claims to treat 6,000 patients a day, to teach more than 35,000 students, and to run one of Pakistan's biggest ambulance services.
Markaz-e-Taiba is its showcase centre, featuring a boys' school, a girls' school, an Islamic University, a large mosque, a farm and a well-equipped hospital with three full-time doctors. It even has a swimming pool and 20 well groomed horses for student's physical education.
Mr Abbas said it was inspired by a tour of Lahore's Aitchison College, Pakistan's most elite private school whose alumni include Imran Khan, the former Pakistan cricket captain.
"If Aitchison College was collaborating with us at that time, then how come we now face this problem now?" he said.
JuD now denies any link to LeT and any involvement in the Mumbai attacks, and has pledged to fight the decision to close it down through Pakistani and international courts.
Mr Abbas, however, warned the government that closing Markaz-e-Taiba could provoke a backlash from locals, many of whom donate money, attend the mosque and send their children there for education.
"You can't record a single incident where we have blocked roads or burned tyres, but if this complex is closed, parents of our students may well come on the roads and do such things," he said.
"We don't know what will happen when the students return on Monday."
Pakistani officials are especially concerned about a backlash in the province of Punjab, where Markaz-e-Taiba is situated, as the densely populated region has been relatively stable until now, analysts say.
Local officials contacted by The Times declined to comment on why the complex, next to the Grand Trunk road between Lahore and Islamabad, had not been closed.
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