Hafeez Saeed: The Theatre of the Absurd Manzoor Ahmad Misinformation and propaganda has been the hallmark of Pakistan when it comes to dealing with extremist and terrorist elements operating from their soil. Take the case of Hafeez Saeed, who is a wanted terrorist in the 2008 Mumbai attacks and has a US$ 10 million US bounty on his head. Abdul Basit, Pak High Commissioner in New Delhi sang his Master’s Voice last month when he defended the wanted terrorist by saying that Saeed is a Pak national and can go anywhere and say whatever he likes in Pakistan. While technically true, one must question the sanity of the Pak High Commissioner in making such remarks when he fully knows that Saeed is wanted globally as a extremist and terrorist. It also appears the Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafeez Saeed requires psychiatric treatment. Here is a man who is on social media and uses it to spread disinformation. His latest missive was made while sitting on a rescue boat in Multan. He blamed India for the floods that have submerged swathes of the Pakistani countryside and claimed hundreds of lives. Saeed alleged that India irrigates its deserts and dumps the extra water into Pakistan without any warning. Here is the mastermind of the 2008 attack on Mumbai speaking his usual nonsense! Hafeez Saeed is not the only one dishing out this kind of propaganda. Another Pakistani radical and head of the Hizbul Mujahideen, Sayeed Salahuddin, also argues that India wants to turn Pakistan into an arid desert! Even JuD leader Amir Hamza made the same allegations. One can see method in this madness. Saeed’s tweets against India are known for their absurdity. Note that there is no evidence to prove Saeed’s allegations. Experts have clarified that September 2014 floods, which also hit the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, were caused by the sheer volume of rainfall. The reality is that Saeed and his ilk are using the floods and any other natural calamity in Pakistan, to fill the vacuum created by the inability of local authorities to provide succour. Indoctrination and radicalisation of the Pakistani populace is the main aim, it is not to provide relief! The strategy used by terrorist organizations has been to create front charities, like the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD). JuD is the front for LeT, the militant group which carried out the 2008 Mumbai attack. Like in 2010, the JuD sent hundreds of workers to areas of Pakistan worst affected by the floods in September 2014, and distributed food and medicine. This time around, JuD has assumed a new name, Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation, to despatch relief goods to flood-affected areas in southern Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Natural calamity gives such organizations the opportunity to spread the JuD/Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)’s hardline ideology against India. Many Pakistanis falsely believe that India uses its upstream dams to manipulate the amount of water flowing into Pakistani fields. The reality is otherwise. Successive Pak governments in fact have failed to invest in dams and other necessary infrastructure to regulate water levels through the wet and dry seasons. Former Pak Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani doubts if the Nawaz Sharif’s government would have heeded warnings from India about an impending flood even if it had been warned in advance. How true! Husain Haqqani, a former Pak Ambassador to the US and currently based in America, puts things in perspective when he says that water is being exploited to keep things on the boil between India and Pakistan. He dismisses as “downright absurd”, Saeed’s claim about floods in Pakistan being the result of India releasing water. Haqqani adds that these are part of propaganda efforts to make Pakistanis see India as their permanent enemy and cover up for Islamabads failure in the field of managing water. The lesson for countries like Pakistan, which plays host to non-state actors, is to ensure that militants/terrorists do not misuse the available freedom to target other nations. It will not be long before the other nation retaliates! ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 15:56:05 +0000
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