Pakistan: Banned anti-Shia organisations go online to collect Eidul Adha hides

More than six dozen banned outfits and welfare organisations, mostly of local origin, are barred from collecting hides of sacrificial animals.

But many of these organisations have taken to the social network and cyberspace to carry out fund raising campaigns, an informed intelligence official told Pak. Nation News on Sunday.

The state’s security apparatus do not have capacity to monitor all traffic as the organisations keep on changing their addresses online, he said.

The banned organisations have also established public welfare wings with new faces to cover their activities, a traditional way to flout government regulations.

Animal hides are a key source for many banned organisations involved in militancy, especially in Punjab and Sindh.

Separatist organisations in Balochistan also generate some funds through this source.

However hides have never been a significant source of funding for outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the biggest monster and anti-Shia group which now has been badly hurt by the military operation in the north-western tribal areas of the country.

Some security sources said militants use funds generated from hides for converting their “black funds” into legitimate finances.

According to reported statistics, more than 10 billion rupees sales of the hides was made last year to the industries concerned.

Despite all measures taken by the government to choke fund lines of militants, banned outfits are still reaching out to masses, especially in rural areas, for hides. Security experts said it is a daunting task to identify and clog their funding lines.

“It is not possible for security services to launch surveillance on every house of the country,” the intelligence official said.

The government should come up with a clear strategy to deal with the issue, the experts stressed.
Banned outfits in Punjab and Sindh influence the government by using their supporters who vote for the parties that go soft on them after taking power, they said while mentioning a major problem.

According to an interior ministry official there are around 200 hundred militant and welfare organisations of local and international origin banned by the government at various stages.

The major banned organisations that cannot collect hides include: Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JM), Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT), Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), Tehreek-e-Islami, Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan (Formerly SSP), Khuddam-ul-Islam (Formerly JM), Islami Tehreek Pakistan (Formerly TJP), Jamiat-ul-Ansar, Jamiat-ul-Furqan (Formerly JM) and Hizb-ul-Tahrir, and some others.

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