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Issue of collecting funds for 'jihad'
hots up in Pakistan

"Pakistan does not want confrontation with jihadi organisations but cannot permit them to collect donations to purchase weapons and impart commando training," Haider told reporters in Islamabad.

Various jihadi groups in Pakistan have reacted adversely to Haider's statement on fund raising to purchase weapons and impart commando training to wage jihad (holy war) against India.

Mujahideen (holy warriors) groups termed the ban as 'un-Islamic' and demanded that the minister apologise for his statement.

"The government's stand on jihad and jihadi organisations is very clear. The government has presented very effectively the difference between jihad and terrorism before the world community," Haider said.

However, Haider said, "An ordinance to this effect could be promulgated if jihadi organisations do not stop staging donation camps."

Stating that such activities create negative impact of Pakistan abroad, he said the government does not stop receiving voluntary donations but it should be done in a civilised manner.

The minister had earlier said, "We will force them to remove banners and signboards posted around the country's mosques. Terrorism in the disguise of religion would be history now.''

He said there was no need of promoting 'fake jihadism ' in the world.

''Infact, this is not the case as we are a peace loving nation,'' he had said.

Responding to another question, he said despite the ban on display of arms, some people persisted with the same as if they were exempted from it.

Haider had recently stated that persons carrying and demonstrating banned arms would be shot dead.

On Afghanistan, Haider said Pakistan would not involve itself in Afghanistan's internal disputes in any manner but 'being a neighbouring brotherly country, Pakistan favours a negotiated settlement of the Afghan problem'.

Militant groups on the other hand urged the country's chief executive, Gen Pervez Musharraf, to remove the confusion created by the minister's statement.

The jihadi groups as well as the Jamaat Islami, which is also involved in terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir, claimed that to collect funds and donations for jihad was the order of Allah and 'his order can't be banned'.

They alleged that the Interior Minister wanted to please the United States of America and other anti-Islamic forces.

The Muthaida Jihad Council, an alliance of several jihad organisations operating in J&K, also rejected the minister's statement.

In their separate statements, leaders of the Hizbul Mujahideen, Harkatul Mujahideen, Harkat Jihad e-Islami, Al-omar Mujahideen, Muslim Janbaz Force and Lashkar-e-Tayiba, claimed that Pakistani youths were sacrificing their lives in Kashmir to get the valley 'liberated'.

Agencies

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