Pakistan ''allows'' JuD''s charity wing to collect funds for Kashmir

Islamabad, August 30

The Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), a welfare wing of the JuD- led by Mumbai terrorist attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed, has set up a camp for donations for “relief” in Kashmir, a media report claims.

Banners displayed near the camp — set up in the Blue Area, Islamabad’s main business district — show JuD chief Hafiz Saeed asking people to “donate to the Kashmir Fund for the Kashmiri cause”, the Express Tribune reports.

Apart from raising funds, the FIF is reportedly also playing “pro-Jihad” songs and showing videos of the unrest in Kashmir.

Although JuD is on Pakistan’s watch list, FIF's media coordinator Ahmad Nadeem said there were currently no restrictions on the charity wing’s activities in Pakistan.

“There was a confusion over the issue last year and the FIF was forcibly stopped from collecting donations by different city administrations. But, later the Lahore High Court ruled in favour of the FIF and the charity organisation is free to carry out its relief activities and funds generation,” the Express Tribune quoted him, as saying.

Nadeem added that the local administration had permitted the camp.

The Punjab Home Department directed police to keep an eye on JuD’s fundraising activities through FIF in July.

Pakistan banned TV channels from covering FIF and JuD’s activities in 2015.

Some 70 people have died and thousands have been wounded in the violent protests that erupted since Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani was killed in a military operation in Kashmir’s Anantnag on July 8.

The unrest has cooled an already tense relationship between India and Pakistan.

India accuses its rival of stoking the violence. — ANI