Lashkar front encashes Eid,makes millions from hide

Militants behind attacks in Pakistan and across its borders get funds from extortion,drugs,kidnappings and donations from foreign sympathisers. But some of the money comes by way of charities,including those collecting hides to raise funds.

Over this year’s holiday,which fell last week,Pakistanis killed around 5 million sheep and goats and 1 million cows,according to the country’s tanners association. The skins are of no use to those who kill the animals,but are snapped up by tanneries.

The sale of skins in coming days will account for around 45 per cent of the needs of Pakistan’s leather industry this year,the tannery association said.

Militant groups are not the only ones to benefit from hide sales. The leading hide collector in Karachi,the country’s largest city,is its ruling party. Another major beneficiary is a cancer hospital for the poor run by Imran Khan,a cricketer-turned-politician.

Extremist groups typically run seminaries that have thousands of children who can go door-to-door to collect them from people happy to have them taken from their front porch,according to former JuD spokesman Abdullah Muntazir.

“These are the people whom I trust and these are the people who do the best work for charity,” said Illahi Shaikh,as he directed a team of butchers cutting up his two cows outside JuD’s mosque in Islamabad. “So what if the US calls them terrorists,I don’t care,” he said.

The UN’s listed JuD as a terrorist group after the Mumbai attacks,saying it believed it was an alias for Lashkar-e-Toiba. Islamabad initially moved against the group. But the group has since scored wins against the government in court.

In Islamabad alone this year,the group collected 2,500 skins on the first day of the three-day holiday,members of the group at the Quba mosque said. Agha Saiddain,from the Tanners Association,said JuD was the fourth largest beneficiary,with the Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami the No 1 earner.

Hard-liners oppose pardon for woman

LAHORE: Around 250 hard-line Muslims staged a demonstration warning Pakistan’s President not to pardon a Christian woman sentenced to death for insulting Islam. The rally in Lahore also defended the blasphemy law. Wednesday’s protest is a snapshot of emotions that have swirled around Asia Bibi — the Christian woman whose case has prompted an appeal from Pope Benedict XVI.

Bibi,a 45-year-old mother of five,has said she was falsely accused by a group of Muslim women angry at a dispute over whether they could share the same water bowl. Bibi has been jailed in Punjab province since her arrest 18 months ago.