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SAN FRANCISCO, Ca (June
8, 2006) – The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) supported
the addition of two Pakistani splinter terrorist groups to
the Specially Designated Global Terrorist Designation (SDGT)
of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) by the United States Department
of State in consultation with the Attorney General, the Secretary
of the Treasury, and the Department of Homeland Security on
April 28, 2006. Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), which has already received
the designation in 2001 following a brazen attack on the Indian
Parliament, has since been operating under the additional
aliases Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq to evade
sanctions.
Formed in 1990, the Pakistani-based
LeT is considered one of the best trained and equipped terrorist
organizations operating in South Asia. Initially the LeT participated
in the resistance operations against Soviet forces in Afghanistan,
and subsequently began operations in Jammu and Kashmir. The
group follows a fundamentalist Islamic ideology demanding
the end of Indian sovereignty in Kashmir, the establishment
Islamic rule in other parts of India and the eradication of
Hindus. LeT supremo Hafiz Mohammad Saeed once stated, "the
Hindu is a mean enemy and the proper way to deal with him
is the one adopted by our forefathers who crushed them by
force." Closely affiliated with the other radical Islamist
entities, the group is known to have safe-housed top al-Qaeda
commanders and has claimed to have assisted the Taliban and
Osama bin Laden.
In Kashmir, the LeT has
been responsible for much of the ongoing violence including
the recent massacre of 35 Hindus near the Doda district in
early May. In other regions of India, the LeT has formed an
extensive network of cells which have facilitated their terrorist
activities throughout the country. Officials suspect the group’s
hand in the coordinated bombing of a popular Hindu temple
and a railway station in March which killed more than 20 people
in the holy pilgrimage city of Varanasi. In December of 2005,
LeT militants opened fire on the campus of the Indian Institute
of Science in Bangalore killing and seriously injuring several
professors and researchers. Last October, the LeT is believed
to have planned and executed a series of bomb blasts in populated
marketplaces which killed 61 in New Delhi. In July, 2005,
LeT terrorists attacked worshippers and security forces at
the holy Ram Janmabhoomi complex in the city of Ayodhya.
Unfortunately, LeT and its
splinter organizations have found a virtually unrestricted
base of operation in Pakistan. Though the Pakistani government
officially banned LeT in 2002 under international pressure,
the government seems to be indifferent to the presence of
this notorious terrorist organization functioning from within
its borders and has allowed LeT affiliated groups to openly
finance, recruit and operate virtually unhindered. Pakistani
officials maintain that the two LeT affiliated groups that
have been given the SDGT designation are ‘Islamic charities’
and refuse to ban them domestically.
“We are pleased by
the State Department’s perseverance in identifying,
exposing and banning the multiple facades of this terrorist
outfit,” said Swaminathan Venkataraman, Executive Council
Member of the Hindu American Foundation. “But at the
same time, these efforts may be in vain if the Government
of Pakistan continues to fight the war on terror in an insincere
and half-hearted manner.”
The Hindu American Foundation
is a non-profit 501(c)(3), non-partisan organization, promoting
the Hindu and American ideals of understanding, tolerance
and pluralism.
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