The outlawed Harkatul Mujahideen, which played a key role during militancy in Jammu and Kashmir in the 1990s, has resurfaced as the Al Hilal Trust in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, a media report said Wednesday.
The group has been active in Karachi since 1990 under different names, the Daily Times newspaper today quoted a report prepared by an intelligence agency as saying. The report said the Harkatul Mujahideen has operated under the names of Jamiatul Ansar, Harkatul Ansar and Al Hilal Trust. Al Hilal Trust's main office is currently in a mosque in the Sher Shah area of Karachi and it is run by a man named Muhammad Yar Rabbani, who lives in the mosque and has been "instrumental in sending people to Kashmir and Afghanistan," the report said.
The group's deputy chief in Sindh province is Hafiz Idrees, who lives in another mosque in the same area. The group also has another office at Jodia Bazar in Karachi. The report said Fazlur Rehman Khalil was the chief commander of the group when it was named Jamiatul Ansar, whose central office is located in Islamabad. The report further said the group had decided to hold "jihad education classes" every Saturday. When the Harkatul Mujahideen was first set up in Karachi, it had 110 units whose mission "was to raise funds for jihad and attract people for the cause".
Meanwhile, the Harkatul Mujahideen has also set up its new website on which it says it "commenced Islmaic jihad in Kashmir" in 1990 under the leadership of Sajjad Afghani Shaheed. "Hundreds of youth sacrificed their lives for the noble cause from the platform of HuM," says a post on the website.