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| Commuters in Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, a group that is ostensibly banned by CreditMax Becherer for NYT. |
The New York Times
MIRPURKHAS — In a country roiled by violent strife, the southern province
of Sindh land
of Sufis
Glittering Sufi shrines dot the banks of the river Indus
as it wends through the province. The faithful sing and dance at exuberant
religious festivals. Hindu traders, members of a sizable minority, thrive in
the major towns.
But as Islamist groups have expanded across Pakistan
in tandem with the growing strength of the Taliban insurgency, so, too, are
they making deep inroads into Sindh. Although banned by the state, such groups
are systematically exploiting weaknesses in Pakistan ’s
education system and legal code as part of a campaign to persecute minorities
and spread their radical brand of Sunni Islam.
The growth of the fundamentalist groups, many with links to
armed factions, has been alarmingly rapid in Sindh and has brought violence in
its wake, according to police officials, politicians and activists. In recent
months, Hindu temples have been defaced, Shiite Muslims have been assaulted and
Christians have been charged with blasphemy.
A central factor in the expansion of such groups is a
network of religious seminaries, often with funding from opaque sources, that
provides them with a toehold in poor communities. “If there were three
seminaries in a city before, now there are tens of seminaries in just one
neighborhood,” said Asad Chandio, news editor of the Sindhi-language newspaper
Awami Awaz.
In May, a threatening crowd in Mirpurkhas, a small city in
central Sindh, surrounded four members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses who had set
up a stall near the railway station. The mob accused the four of blasphemy
because they were selling books that contained images of God and Moses. The
crowd’s leader was a member of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, a sectarian group that
is ostensibly banned by the government, but that is now openly operating, and
growing, across Sindh.
Fearing crowd violence, police officers led the four to a
nearby police station where they were charged with blasphemy — potentially a
capital offense. They were taken away in an armored vehicle, and are now in
hiding as they await trial.
Locals said they were struggling to understand how, or why,
the incident had taken place. “There are so many communities here, and we have
all lived peacefully,” said Francis Khokhar, the lawyer for the four accused.
The Sunni supremacist ideology propagated by Pakistani
sectarian groups is similar to the one that is proving so potent in the Middle
East , where the Islamic State in Iraq
and Syria , or ISIS ,
is flourishing. In Pakistan ,
such groups do not pose a direct threat to the state yet. But their growth in
Sindh is a sobering reminder that a future threat to Pakistani stability could
stem from the provincial towns as much as the distant tribal belt, where the
Pakistani military is trying to disrupt havens for the Taliban and other
militants.
The provincial government in Sindh, concerned about what one
government official called the “mushroom growth” of extremist seminaries, is
trying to decide what to do.
“Our seminaries have become a source of trouble,” Niaz
Abbasi, the home secretary of Sindh, said in an interview.
Despite its open-minded image, Sindhi society has always had
a fringe of Islamist extremists, particularly within Karachi ,
the provincial capital, which has seen an increase in violent attacks in recent
years. What has alarmed experts, however, is the spread of fundamentalist
groups deep inside the province.
Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, the group behind the blasphemy
charges in Mirpurkhas, sprang from a small town in Punjab
Province Pakistan ,
it has grown into Pakistan ’s
dominant vehicle for Sunni sectarianism, trafficking in hatred against Shiites
to win popular and political support.
It has been banned several times — first, in its incarnation
as Sipah-e-Sahaba, and in 2012 in its present guise. Still, that did not stop
its leader, Maulana Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, from running for Parliament last
year. This year, an election tribunal disqualified the winner and gave the seat to Mr. Ludhianvi. The case is in
litigation now.
The group also has longstanding ties to the ruthless
militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, whose militants have killed hundreds of
Shiites in Baluchistan and Karachi
in the past two years. Malik Ishaq, the leader of Lashkar, is also a vice
president of Ahle Sunnat.
Now Ahle Sunnat is on a recruitment drive in Sindh. While it
was traditionally centered in Karachi
and Khairpur district, about 200 miles to the north, it now has signed up
50,000 members across Sindh, about half of them outside Karachi ,
said a spokesman, Umar Muavia. A key to its success is an expanding network of
4,000 religious seminaries that offer free classes and food to students from
impoverished families.
“We give them a religious education,” said Hammad Muavia, a
spokesman for the group in the Khairpur district. “We feed and house them, and
provide them a bursary that goes to their families. We even pay for their
medical expenses. We take better care of the students than even their own
parents.”
In part, Ahle Sunnat is exploiting the chronic weakness of Pakistan ’s
education system: Over 3,000 state-run schools in Sindh are not functioning,
and those in operation frequently offer a dismal quality of schooling. Less
clear are its sources of income. The group says it raises funds from local
businessmen and the community, but critics say it is principally funded by Saudi
Arabia .
“Yes, sometimes if there are clerics from Saudi
Arabia visiting Pakistan ,
they contribute to us,” said Mr. Muavia, the Khairpur spokesman. “But there is
no relationship with the Saudi government.”
The link between madrasas and militancy is often debated by
experts; some point out that Pakistan’s most famous jihadi commanders have been
educated not at madrasas but at state-run schools. What is clear, though, is
that the madrasas offer groups like Ahle Sunnat a toehold from which to project
themselves into the community and expose more Pakistanis to sermons that
sometimes veer explicitly into incitement of violence against Shiites and other
minorities.
The group is also using the contentious blasphemy law to cow
its enemies. Mr. Chandio, the newspaper editor, said his newspaper received
threats from Ahle Sunnat after he published photos of the group’s activists
attacking a police van during a blasphemy case.
Mr. Muavia, the Ahle Sunnat spokesman in Khairpur, said he
had filed several blasphemy cases, but, to his disappointment, the police had
rejected them. “The Pakistani government is outraged when blasphemous acts
against Prophet Muhammad take place abroad, but does nothing when they happen
at home,” he complained.
Other Sunni groups are also expanding in Sindh.
Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a charity that the United States
recently designated as a front for the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, has a
network of seminaries and carries out relief work during natural disasters. Its
leader, Hafiz Saeed, regularly tours Karachi
and other major cities in Sindh, evidently unbothered by a $10 million American
bounty for his arrest.
Also expanding is Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, led by Maulana
Fazlur Rehman, a conservative politician from northwestern Pakistan .
The group held two of the largest political rallies in the province in recent
years.
Since March, the police have recorded 12 attacks on Hindu
and Sikh temples across the province, said Iqbal Mehmood, who until recently
served as the provincial police chief. Separately, Hindu leaders have accused
Muslim groups of trying to forcibly convert Hindu girls to Islam.
Across Pakistan ,
Shiites have been subjected to “an alarming and unprecedented escalation in
sectarian violence,” Human Rights Watch recently noted in a report on attacks on ethnic
Hazara Shiites in western Baluchistan
Province
Some officials say the groups have flourished in part thanks
to the turning of a blind eye by provincial politicians — mostly from the
Pakistan Peoples Party that has dominated Sindh’s politics for decades — and
the tacit support of the military and its powerful spy agency, Inter-Services
Intelligence.
During the 1990s, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi “enjoyed a close
relationship” with the military and ISI because it was assisting with the fight
in Indian-controlled Kashmir , said the recent Human
Rights Watch report. For its part, the military denies that it is supporting
militant groups.
“These groups don’t come up naturally; they are provided
backing by the state,” said Mr. Chandio, the newspaper editor. “They can
protest anywhere, and close down a city if they want. But when they hold
rallies in support of the army and the ISI, they’ve proven who supports them.”
Saba Imtiaz reported from Mirpurkhas, and Declan Walsh from
Leony Li
By
Published: 2014-07-16T12:40:00-07:00
Extremists make Inroads in diverse Sindh: NYT
By
Published: 2014-07-16T12:40:00-07:00
Extremists make Inroads in diverse Sindh: NYT
