Militants take high profile in Kashmir quake relief By Aamir Ashraf
Fri Oct 14,10:04 AM ET
They don’t wear uniforms, but everyone in the earthquake-hit capital of Pakistani Kashmir know who the bearded, muscular men with Kalashnikov rifles at the fore of relief work are.
Kashmiri boys surround the gunmen, staring in open admiration at the men they presume to have fought the Indian Army on the other side of the ceasefire line dividing disputed Kashmir.
Jamat-ud-Dawa, a charity linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the most feared militant groups operating in Kashmir, says its members had set up tented shelter for 1,800 people, clinics for the injured, and were providing relief for 2,500 people after the earthquake flattened Muzzafarabad last Saturday.
The group has also buried hundreds of unidentified bodies pulled from the ruins of the city.
“Authorities are asking us to carry out relief operations as they do not have the manpower and skill,” said spokesman Ghulam Ullah Azad.
“They are our people. They are Kashmiri Muslims and we are here to help our people,” said Azad.
Many of the group’s members can be seen driving ambulances and providing medical aid, food and tents.
“I was under the rubble and rescued by them after two hours, not by anyone else,” said Raja Naeem, who was getting treatment in one of the camps run by the Jamat – though most people call it Lashkar.
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, another militant group fighting Indian rule, has similar relief operations in the city.
Latif Dar, who was injured in the quake, said the militant groups had been much faster than military and civilian authorities helping quake victims.
“They rescued hundreds of people and they are providing food, tents and medical aid to hundreds of others in areas where the army has not yet reached,” Dar said.
“They may be seen as bad groups for Pakistan, but they are not seen as bad for Kashmiris.”
Lashkar was banned in January 2002, a month after it was implicated in an attack on India’s parliament that brought South Asia’s nuclear rivals to the brink of war.
India has long accused Islamabad of backing the militants, saying they slip into Indian Kashmir from the Pakistani side. Pakistan says it provides diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmiri groups, while accusing the Indian army of human rights abuses.
The peace process begun by President Pervez Musharraf and India at the start of 2004 has meant that militant groups have had to lie low, and overall infiltration levels have dropped despite a slight pick-up in activity over the summer.
While fighters from some groups, angered by Musharraf’s peace moves, have forged ties with al Qaeda and have been implicated in acts of terrorism inside Pakistan.
Talat Masood, a former general and political analyst, foresaw some groups being strengthened by the goodwill earned bringing relief to beleaguered Kashmiris.
“They are working on the pattern of Hamas,” he said, referring to the Palestinian militant group. “They have given themselves more of a humanitarian look to penetrate the masses.”