Presence of four former Inter Services Intelligence heads at a religious congregation near Lahore leads to speculation on j-had.
Are they shopping for jihadis too? Maybe
LAHORE: The presence of four former Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) heads at a religious congregation near Lahore has led to speculation that the Pakistani intelligence is recruiting radical Islamic youth to wage jihad.
The three-day annual congregation of the Tableeghi Jamaat (Party of Preachers) at Raiwind near Lahore is being attended by Lt Gen (retd) Hameed Gul, Lt Gen (retd) Javed Nasir, Lt Gen (retd) Naseem Rana and Lt Gen Mahmood Ahmed.
Maulana Ilyas, one of the organisers of the congregation, told DNA: “Their presence in the ijtema and their speeches inspire others to attend the congregation. All the four have been attending it since the days they were in uniform.”
Several experts maintain that the presence of the former ISI chiefs is part of a well-designed strategy to recruit young men into militant ranks to wage jihad. The Pakistani law treats the Tableeghi Jamaat as a humanitarian group and not as a religio-political party. Consequently, there is no ban on government servants, members of the armed forces and the scientific community joining the party [even as members] and working for it during off-duty hours.
Many of them, in fact, devote part of their leave to do voluntary work for Tableeghi Jamaat.
Interestingly, after his appointment as the Director General of ISI by then prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Lt Gen Nasir continued to function simultaneously as adviser to the TJ. After his removal from the ISI under US pressure in 1993, he took over as the full-time leader of the TJ. It was during Javed Nasir’s tenure as DG ISI that the Mumbai serial blasts of 1993 were carried out.
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