No, not really.
Qaida members posed as Tablighi Jamaat activists to get Pak visas
NEW DELHI: Consider the following: Hamir Mohammed, a Sudanese Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) recruiter, presented himself as a Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) worker in Delhi to secure a Pakistani visa.
Somali Muhammed Sulayman Barre, accused of being an al-Qaida financier, a facilitator in the global jihad support network and a suspected aide of Osama bin Laden, obtained his Pakistani visa, courtesy a TJ sponsorship. "Detainee stated he had no intention of performing missionary duties...he just used the group to get a visa".
Saudi national Abdul Bukhary stayed in the TJ headquarters at "Nizam-e-Alden" (Nizamuddin) for a month. However, pressed by a TJ leader to make a life-long commitment to the organization, Bukhary balked as he "did not want to commit his life to servitude, pilgrimage and missionary work". He returned to Lahore soon after.
The Wikileaks revelations on Guantanamo Bay files show how al-Qaida members at various times used the network of Tablighi Jamaat and often posed as missionaries to access visas to Pakistan and other destinations, and used the Jamaat's premises as shelter.
Set up in the 1920s by Maulana Mohammed Ilyas, Tablighis see themselves as a puritanical movement calling for the rejection of "impurities" in Islamic practice. The movement is associated with Deobandi roots and harkens to the time of the Prophet.
In Delhi, those associated with TJ claim that although the sect has several million workers, it shuns publicity. The organization lacks an organized structure and works towards propagating the Islamic way of life.
Tabligh workers at the organization's world headquarters in Nizamuddin speak of the constant scrutiny they are subjected to — "the area is teeming with people from the Intelligence Bureau, but they have never been able to detect any suspicious activity."
Architect Urfi Obaid, a self-styled spokesman for TJ, explained that the nature of the organization makes it immune from being held responsible for terror plots.
"Anybody is free to join. In Delhi alone, there are several thousand mosques, and each mosque would have some seven to eight people who attend TJ meetings. Extrapolate that figure to a global context, and you will know how many people serve TJ. Many come and go. Foreigners can also join once they follow the basic regulations. How can we be held responsible for those who are hatching terror plots," Obaid asks.
TJ's activities are cloaked in secrecy. For instance, the information about its annual gathering — about 20 lakh attended the last event in Bangladesh — is only by word of mouth.
"We try to help people in distress from all faiths, and want Muslims to become aware of their religion and practice it to perfection," Obaid said.
However, the organization came to disrepute during the siege of the Mecca in the 1970s, and has since then been viewed with suspicion in Saudi Arabia.
Qaida members posed as Tablighi Jamaat activists to get Pak visas - Times Of India