Madrassahs under scrutiny in Pakistan’s extremist crackdown
Mohammad Rafi is certain who is to blame for his school being taken under government control and his organisation banned. His sprawling Hudaibiah education complex, three weeks ago, became one of nearly 300 seminaries, schools, hospitals and dispensaries taken over for links to outlawed groups.
“It’s propaganda. Indian and US propaganda. Two or three times this has happened to us and then we go to court,” the school principal said confidently last week. Mr Rafi has for 17 years been a member of Jamaat-uddawa (JUD), which operates an estimated 300 madrassahs as well as a fleet of ambulances.
JUD calls itself a humanitarian group, but the US, Britain and the UN say it is a front for Lashkar-e-taiba (LET), a terror group accused of the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166.
Pakistan’s military has long been accused of sponsoring and harbouring militant groups to provide foreign policy muscle in Afghanistan, Kashmir and India. After years of demands that it tackle militant-linked organisations waging jihad from its soil, Pakistan has begun what observers say appears to be its biggest crackdown in years.
The latest drive was launched soon after another banned Pakistan-based group, Jaish-e-mohammad (JEM) brought Pakistan and India to the brink of war when it claimed a suicide bombing that killed 40 police. At least 121 people are in “preventive detention”, Pakistan says.
Yet there is doubt over whether this push is any more determined than a series of largely cosmetic prior crackdowns, or whether it is just a ploy to head off sanctions. If the purge is genuine, Pakistan faces the dilemma of what to do with thousands of members of these organisations.
JUD was banned in the crackdown. Mr Rafi denied his 13-acre complex in Chakri on the outskirts of Rawalpindi was a madrassah and said his 300 students learnt a broad government syllabus. He denied links to militants and said the crackdown had meant the
appointment of a local education department administrator and the resignation of a couple of teachers, but that lessons continued. “If India and America make these accusations, then they have to provide proof,” he said.
At Islamabad’s al-quba mosque, run by JUD, doors were last week again open for Friday prayers after it was taken over and given a new imam. Posters said it was under government administration. The former preacher had delivered sermons “mostly about Kashmir and Kashmir jihad. There was nothing about violence in Pakistan”, said one worshipper, Riaz Bukhari.
A failure to follow through on previous promised crackdowns has bred widespread international scepticism. Islamabad promised to root out militants after Mumbai in 2008 and after the 2016 attack on India’s Pathankot airbase.
A recent US State Department report on terrorism in the region said Pakistan “did not take sufficient action against other externally focused groups such as LET and JEM” and they “continued to operate, train, organise, and fund-raise in Pakistan”.
A ban on Jud’s activities was overturned in court last year. Hafiz Saeed, the leader of LET, remains a free man despite a $10million (£7.6million) bounty on his head.
Whether this crackdown is different depends on whether the military still sees the groups as useful, or an international liability, analysts believe.
Zahid Hussain, an analyst, said domestic political consensus and international pressure appeared to make this crackdown more serious.
He said: “There’s urgency because of what happened, the Indian and Pakistan stand-off and also growing international pressure.”