Finally some movement
Not many, except the government of course, are surprised that finances of some 200 suspect seminaries in Punjab are not quite straight forward. The exercise took its sweet time coming, but once the government finally looked into funding of seminaries that spawned the most suicide bombers, it found precious little in their coffers. That was when, so many years into this war against terrorism and more than one year since the announcement of NAP, the government finally realised that these seminaries do not really use formal banking channels, and are likely leveraging either hundi and hawala methods or are even more old school – transferring by hand.
The up-side is that there is finally some movement. Now relevant agencies will question these outfits one by one, and their methods will become clearer. For long governments as well as wealthy donors in friendly countries have been suspected of routing millions – if not billions – to suspect seminaries that serve as brain washing factories for future terrorists. Funding is, of course, the life and blood of these organisations. It is the oxygen that lubricates and finances their operations. Once this is checked, most are automatically defanged. All that is left is bringing them to justice.
It will be interesting, and instructive, now to see the reaction of the right-of-centre lobby that holds considerable sway over our political spectrum. Their resistance to any manner of madrassa reform has been a prime factor in the government’s soft position on the issue. But if investigation now underway indeed reveals foul play, some madrassas might find their patrons and protectors themselves running for cover. The government must now push this issue through with full force. Checking funding of such institutions is usually the first step in the fight against organised and institutionalised terrorism. Pakistan has already lost a lot of time, and people. Now that the government has gained the initiative, it must not let complacency creep in.