JuD in Political arena: Implication to Pakistan as well as India

Banned outfit Jamaat ud Dawa (JuD) the parent organisation of dreadful terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), has sought to enter the political sphere by launching the Milli Muslim League, a new political party on August 8. Saifullah Khalid, a religious scholar and longtime official of the group, is president of the newly-formed Milli Muslim League party.

Saifullah Khalid said at the time of inauguration that his party will work to make Pakistan “a real Islamic and welfare state” and that it is ready to cooperate with like-minded parties. Tabish Qayoum, a JuD activist who will work as spokesman for Milli Muslim League, said the charity had filed registration papers for a new party with Pakistan's electoral commission. Khalid has long been a member of the JuD's central leadership. In June this year, he led funeral prayers in absentia for those killed by Indian security forces in Kashmir.

This is notable that United States has offered a $10 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of JuD's founder Hafiz Saeed. The Pakistan government placed him under house arrest earlier this year under the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997. The JuD and its wing the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) were placed on the watch list and put on the second schedule under Section 11-EEE(1) of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 after then Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the government was taking steps to fulfil its international obligations.

Khalid said that the MML will work in close conjunction with JuD, which has a network of thousands of volunteers across Pakistan who work mainly in the education and disaster and medical relief sectors. "We will maintain coordination with Jamaat-ud-Dawa and all other like-minded organisations that hold the ideology of Pakistan … we will offer them our cooperation, and accept theirs."

Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), which the US also says is a front for banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and is run by Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people. Saeed has been under house arrest since January after years of living freely in Pakistan, one of the sore points in the country's fraying relationship with the United States. While Saeed was unable to attend the MML's launch event in Islamabad owing to his arrest, Yahya Mujahid, a close aide and also subject to UN terrorism sanctions, was present at the news conference.

Ayesha Siddiqa, a security analyst, told the Reuters news agency that the new party was designed to cloak the group amid heightening pressure from the international community on Pakistan to crack down on LeT and JuD. "The making of a party indicates the need of JuD to hide itself further so to avoid criticism," Siddiqa told the news agency.

The UN listed LeT on an international sanctions list in 2005 for "participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf or in support of […] supplying, selling or transferring arms and related material to […] or otherwise supporting acts or activities of" al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and the Afghan Taliban. The Pakistani government also lists JuD as "under observation" on a list of banned "terrorist organisations", rather than banning the group outright. In 2015, Pakistan's media regulator banned all coverage of the group's humanitarian activities by the country's news media. LeT has been listed as a "terrorist organisation" by Pakistan since 2002.

This is a well established and worldwide phenomenon that Islamist political parties provide support to terrorist groups and this is quiet usual in across Islam dominated countries. For example it's the subject of ties between Islamic Salvation Front and Islamist terrorist group "Armed Islamic Group" (GIA) and Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (SGPC) in Algeria or in Egypt, Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Islamic Group (Gammat Islamiya);in south Asian country Indonesia where Indonesian Nahdvatul Ulama and Jemmah Islamiya has cordial relations. In Jordan Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas; and in India Jamaat-e-Islami e Hind           (a branch of Jamaat e Islami which was founded by Abul ala Maududi in 1941, and has been playing a important role in politics of Pakistan in course of time) and Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) a banned organisation due to their religious fanatic and terrorist approach. All these Political parties have a relationship with Islamic terrorist groups.  But this is a rare case when a terrorist organisation turned itself into a new outfit with their cadre into an entirely new field where their fate depends on ballet not from bullet. And in Pakistan it’s more surprising.  But this not meant that they shun their arms or the path of terrorism. It’s a simple new outfit by and for their own instead of supporting other Islamist political parties.

Supporting clandestinely or being sympathetic to the cause of Islamist terror groups is always an important policy measure to build up pressure against the state. But it is also strange but true that in most of the countries (including Pakistan), Islamist political parties in Muslim majority are in no position to come into power by means of popular vote. Therefore, their hatred for democracy and one-man-one-vote system is understandable. A glaring example is of Pakistan where Islamist parties like JUI and Jamaat e Islami  have time and again tried every possible democratic measure such as electoral alliances,(specially in 1977, 88, and 1990) costly election campaigns, marketing and adverting campaign. All these measures have so far gone in vain, despite of the fact that Islamist parties are better organized and disciplined than secular and nationalist political parties. Thus, these splinter groups provide a cushion to Islamist parties for developing a strong pressure tactic against government to grind their axes. Islamist parties usually offer their services for negotiations, mediations and arbitration of issues between government and Islamist violent non-state actors, which at times quite useful for these parties in order to enhance their influence.

Is this a Wahhabi spurt?

On August 4, Pakistani newspaper “The international News” published news that three religious groups of Ahle Hadith school of thought have joined hands to form a political alliance under the name of Ahle Hadith Ittehad Council (AHIC) and contest next elections from a single platform. At the occasion AHIC president Maulana Ziaullah Shah Bukhari said that our doors are open for other Ahle Hadith parties like Jamiat Ahle Hadith (Sajid Mir group) and Jamaat ud Dawa, and we will strive for protecting Islamic articles of the Constitution and Blasphemy laws.

Hafiz Saeed is Ahle Hadith, or Wahhabi in common parlance, educated in Saudi Arabia — some say he has a Saudi wife — and is supposed to have met up with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda’s founder Abdullah Azzam there. When the two shifted to Peshawar to fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Saeed opened his own Dawat wal-Irshad jihadi office next to their office. (Later, Irshad morphed into Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is now a terrorist outfit still killing people in Afghanistan.)

Saeed is today’s one of the most powerful man in Pakistan, running charities and educational facilities all over Pakistan. He has networks in 260 cities across the country; his Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) — declared terrorist by the US is the largest NGO. Jamaat and Saeed also has stronghold on Wafaq ul‐Madaaris al-Salafia (Ahl-e-Hadith) which holds 1,400 registered (and many more ghost madarssas) madaaris affiliated with Wafaq ul-Madaaris al-Salafia in Pakistan which propound religious teachings of Abdul wahab. The madaaris of the Jama’at ud-Dawa are also registered in Wafaq ul-Madaaris al-Salafia. In all of these Jamia Salafia Faisalabad, founded by Hakeem Abdur Raheem Ashraf is the only madrassa within the Salafi school of thought which is independent with regards to examinations, and distributes degrees with the approval of the government. They completely reject all schools of thoughts including the Hanafi. Institution like this act like factory for terrorism which produced large number of terrorist year on year.

House of Saud promote the intolerant and extremist Wahhabi creed not just domestically But, unfortunately, for decades the Saudis have also lavishly financed its propagation abroad. Exact numbers are not known, but it is thought that more than $100 billion have been spent on exporting fanatical Wahhabism to various much poorer Muslim nations worldwide over the past three decades. And Pakistan got a large chunk from this. The Saudi-Qatari standoff poses a great diplomatic challenge to Pakistani authorities as they enjoy close economic and geopolitical ties with both Riyadh and Doha and Pakistan’s hesitation to obey the rulings from Riyadh which has been honored for years create. 

Pakistani military's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has deep rooted connections with this Wahhabi nexus of Terrorist, Ideologue and Fund providers. The role of Pakistan’s army (Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)) representatives was very suspicious and Nawaz’s counsel Khawaja Harris Ahmed lambasted the role of ISI representative retired Brig Mohammad Nauman Saeed before the three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, describing him as one of the most aggressive members of the JIT. So it may be possible that in the wake of ouster of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, The army the Saudi’s and such more players act behind the veils and now this is the prelude to foray in this play called Politics of Pakistan.