We must outdo jihadis in relief efforts, says Mush

[A.Rahman]

We must outdo jihadis in relief efforts, says Musharraf

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: President Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday acknowledged that hardline religious groups had stepped into an administrative vacuum, providing relief and humanitarian assistance in the quake-hit areas of Pakistan, but said the government must outdo them.

Musharraf told the Financial Times that Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Al-Rasheed Trust, organisations that are not officially killed but are on a watch list, were doing good and he would make sure they did not “draw people towards extremism or militancy”.

It quoted the Pakistani president as saying that the government needed to provide better stuff. “‘If we construct schools and colleges, people certainly will not go for madrassas there,’” it quoted him as saying.

“Analysts say the development is likely to bolster their (the hardliners’) legitimacy and advance the separatist cause,” the Financial Times reported.

It quoted Musharraf as saying that the government had warned the hardliners that if it (the government) saw any single activity of their (hardliners’) involvement in anything other than welfare, the government was not only going to kill them, but was going to get them out of that place. “‘But now since they are there, certainly we would not like them to stop,’” it quoted Musharraf as saying.

The Financial Times also quoted Musharraf as saying that the total financial cost of the earthquake would exceed $5 billion and that the death toll was likely to be more than 50,000.