Hafiz Saeed- hitting him where it hurts
India may never be able to get Hafiz Saeed, but today it is our best chance to break his financial network. The recent sanctions imposed by the United States of America on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa is considered to be much better than the one that was imposed on the Lashkar-e-Tayiba a couple of years back.
The reason being the Jamaat-ud-Dawa or the JuD is the financial wing of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba. Contrary to the argument by Pakistan that JuD is a charity outfit and helps carry out relief activities any child on the road would confirm that this is just a garb to bring in the funds. Millions of dollars are sent as charity to the JuD and while a chunk of this actually does go into relief work the other source of money also being pumped into the same outfit has gone unaccounted.
The money that the JuD gets runs into at least Rs 400 crore each year. Last year out of this amount Rs 61 crore was contributed by the Pakistan government itself. Apart from this there is around Rs 40 to Rs 50 crore that comes in the form of donation from sympathisers of other countries including India. The rest of the Rs 190 odd crore is what is worrying and this is exactly what keeps the Lashkar going, Intelligence Bureau reports would suggest. The rest of the blood money is coming in through various other forms which include smuggling of arms and narcotics and this is led by the elusive don Dawood Ibrahim and the rest of the arms and drug mafia operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
India has always been telling the US that the JuD is the financial wing of the Lashkar. However the US has taken a lot of time to impose this ban. With this ban, the US comes into the picture and has the power to freeze all funds being diverted to the JuD from any part of the world. In the past a lot of money has gone through India to Pakistan which have landed in the coffers of the JuD. The JuD apart from Pakistan has also set up watering holes in Dubai, Sharjah, Saudi Arabia and London. A lot of the money that has gone into these watering holes have been through the drug and arms smuggling activities that take place on the Afghanistan-Pakistan-India corridor. India needed international help to track down this money since it has landed in a foreign country. IB officials say that the money channels are so deeply infested that it is difficult to track and crack down on the same without help from a foreign agency. This ban will help us and even if the money does manage to slip out of India it can be tracked to its final destination and the US will have the power to freeze these funds. In addition to this donors will be weary before they contribute to the JuD. Earlier it was legal to do so and even the Pakistan government had openly contributed to the JuD. However with this ban declaring it as a terrorist outfit, the job becomes harder and no one will be forthcoming to do so as contributing becomes an offence under the Terrorist Act.
What has added another shot in the arm to the Indian agencies is the declaring of Nazir Ahmed and Mohammad Hussein Gill to the list of terrorist. Both are extremely close to the JuD and Lashkar head, Hafiz Saeed. While Ahmed was a secretary to Saeed, Hussein was the key to managing the funds of the JuD. With contacts in the US, Saudi, Dubai and UK, Hussein since the past ten years has been managing the finances of the JuD. In fact prior to this ban he had the liberty to travel to any of these countries as an ordinary citizen. Now with the ban in place, he will have to stay put in Pakistan and this would curb his activities a great deal.
Source http://vickynanjappa.com/2014/06/27/hafiz-saeed-hitting-him-where-it-hurts/
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