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.