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Rage of the rags

Rage of the rags

Author: Rasheed Ali
Publication: Weekly Independent
Date: July 24-30, 2003
URL: http://www.weeklyindependent.com/news8.htm

Joblessness and poverty pave the way for extremist groups to hunt down young people and use them in the name of religion

That was a horrible day for Murad Ahmed. The municipal committee people raided and took away his handcart off the Multan Road near Chowk Chobuji in Lahore when he had just placed mangoes on it for earning a living for that day.

He went down on his knees and begged for their mercy when they were throwing the fruit off the handcart. But they did not pay heed to his wail  and threw the cart onto an already loaded trolley moving slowly crushing all the fruits under its wheels. "I felt the wheels were crushing my heart, my whole body when the vehicle moved past the scattered fruit," recalls Murad Ahmed.

Murad - the lone bread earner of a six-member family -- spent the remaining day at the municipal committee office going from one room to the other, but he couldn't get back his handcart because he could neither pay the fine nor grease palms of the committeemen. With empty pocket and empty stomach, he ended up at Minar-e-Pakistan cursing his fate and the committee people. There he met Salim Khan, a bearded man of over 40 years, for the first time. He was a soft-spoken person. Finding him kind and receptive, Murad told him almost all about the plight of his family, his sufferings and the committeemen's 'highhandedness'.

Salim bought him naan chholay (a local cheap meal) from a rehri (make- shift food stall) and then took him along to a mosque to say the Maghrib (evening) prayers and 'seek Allah's mercy for ending Murad's sufferings'. On his second visit to a mosque in Sabzazar area of Lahore the day, he was offered to 'tread Allah's path' and in reward get some monthly stipend to run his house. Being jobless, it was a golden chance for Murad to 'set straight his both worlds'. He readily accepted the offer.

He was sent to a training camp near Muzaffarabd in Azad Kashmir to learn the use of weapons. With slim and strong body and sharp at mind, Murad was made commander of the group undergoing two-week training. After returning to Lahore, the jehadi group famous for carrying out attacks on Indian army in held Kashmir helped Murad set up his own fruit shop in Sabzazar area of Lahore. He might be sent across the Line of Control at some appropriate time, though there he would be called as Commander Saifullah, and not as Murad Ahmed.

In Pakistan where the population size is 145 million and growth rate 2.0 percent, getting unemployed people against minimal monthly stipends is not very difficult, says Irfan Mufti, a representative of the South Asia Partnership (SAP). Mr Mufti says that 35 to 40 percent population of the country is living below the poverty line. The province of Sindh and south Punjab, where 15 million people are living in abject poverty, they (extremist groups) very easily find out such young people who are willing to go with them for even two times a day meal, adds the SAP representative.

"Due to poverty 80 people committed suicide in Sindh in January 2003 alone. The extent of poverty could be gauged from unemployed people selling their blood and kidneys. And in such situations, if a young man is promised even a good meal for his whole family, he would readily accept it and go for "jehad"."

However, Liaquat Ali, a supervisor at a pulse-grinding mill in Faisalabad suburbs, has something different to relate. "These jehadi organisations exploit religious sentiments to get one involved in their activities," says Liaquat. "My son's only fault was that he was an innocent and religious- at-heat boy. They made use of his religious mind and got him killed in held Kashmir about six years back when he was just 18 years old," bitterly says Liaquat Ali, originally a resident of a far-off village of tehsil Fort Abbas.

After passing his matriculation examination, Wasim Akhtar -- Liaquat's eldest son -- had come to Faisalabad to seek employment in some mill or factory. Soon he got job as a helper in a textile mill, but miles away from his father's workplace. "There he met some people of a militant organisation and I don't know how they got him engaged in their activities," says Liaquat Ali, the father of five. "Wasim used to come to see me every weekend, but he suddenly disappeared. I made all efforts to trace him in Faisalabad and also asked from his mother back in my village, but couldn't find him," Liaquat added. After about one month's disappearance, Wasim telephoned his cousin Muhammad Shafiq at his shop in Marot, a sub-tehsil of Fort Abbas situated at about 11 kilometres away from Liaquat's village.

"Instead of Punjabi, he was speaking Urdu as if somebody was dictating him," says Shafiq, a turbine technician. "Wasim told me that they were at a training camp in Azad Kashmir and that he was going to sacrifice his life in the name of Allah. I insisted him to give me his address or exact location in Azad Kashmir as his parents were really worried about him, but he disconnected the line," Shafiq recalls.

"That was our first and last contact with him after his going missing, though we made all efforts to find him out at the militant organisation's offices in Pakistan and also in Azad Kashmir," Liaquat Ali adds sadly.

Wasim's uncle, who is serving the Pakistan Air Force, went to Azad Kashmir in his search there but to no avail.

Later, through the monthly bulletin of the jehadi group, they came to know that Wasim was killed in a clash with Indian forces in held Kashmir. "I saw the picture of my son in the bulletin and knew about his death; otherwise, it was not possible to recognise him. They had changed his name to Commander Abu Turab," Liaquat Ali says.

In the account, they claimed that Abu Turab was a non-Muslim; he first embraced Islam and then martyrdom while fighting the Indian occupation forces in the held valley. "They claimed so because my son (Wasim) belonged to a sect different from theirs and they had first convinced him to 'convert' and then go for jehad," explains Liaquat Ali.

"It is true that unemployed youth are somewhat easy prey for the jehadi groups," says Sarwar Nasim, president of the Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Associations. "And I believe the government should be blamed for all this increasing unemployment and poverty in the country. If the government realises its responsibility and makes policies for providing jobs to maximum youth of the country, people could be saved from falling into hands of extremist organisations," adds Sarwar Nasim, also president of the Karachi University Teachers' Society.

It's a common perception that southern Punjab comprising districts Bahawalnagar, Bahawalpur and Lodhran etc are hub of extremist organisations because these are very under-developed regions of the country.

Allah Bakhsh's (not real name) story also strengthens this opinion. A resident of Bahawalpur, this Seraiki speaking man of over 60 years was father of five boys and six girls. His two sons have been killed in Kashmir jehad until now and he is ready to offer more. His other two sons have also acquired training and they are willing to go for jehad whenever their leaders ask for that. Allah Bakhsh publicly eulogises sacrifices of his sons for the cause of Allah, but privately mourns their deaths. "What else could I do? My daughters were getting late to get married and my sons were jobless. Then how could I resist the offer for five or six thousand rupees a month for sending my sons for jehad," the old man is stated to be telling his close friends.

Mahjabeen Hussain, an expert on population and poverty in Pakistan at Sustainable Development Policy Institute, says young people see the failure of national system to meet their growing aspirations to have options in their lives, to meet their immediate needs in health, education and employment, to democratise society and to set up a viable and enabling environment for participation and assurances for human rights.

Images of what a quality life should be are projected daily on our television screens at home and in the public places. But these images prove to be illusions to the young people, says the expert on poverty studies. These images on TV screen add to their frustration because they know they will never be able to attain anything in their lives, Mahjabeen says.

Poverty, hardships, discrimination, abuse and complexes harm their personality. In this state of despair, they opt for whatever opportunity comes their way, and extremist organisations are among such attractions that catch attention of the youth, analyses Ms Mahjabeen.
 


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