Stringer Asia Logo
Share on Google+
news of the day
in depth
Milan, Pakistan
  • Milano
    Milano
A few days ago, in Lahore, was placed under house arrest Mohammed Hafiz Saeed: founder of Lashkar-i-Toiba, head of the Jamaat-u-Dawa and Falah-and-Insaniat Foundation: plainly, the organization which organized, among other things, the massacre of Mumbai in 2008 and its so-called humanitarian organizations already for a long time in the viewfinder of the United Nations that sees them as terrorist organizations. The news has made wasting rivers of ink and words in India and Pakistan but in practice has very little relevance: Islamabad puts in general under house arrest Hafiz Saeed when is feeling the heat from the international community. It usually lasts generally lasts for a while and has no consequences. At the moment, the house arrests have not been followed by any formal charge and from home the bearded guy continues to make statements and to hold press conferences. Stating, among other things, that `will not stop fighting until it is solved the Kashmir issue`. How? To use his own words, repeatedly used at rallies and in public speeches that Hafiz Saeed, wanted by CIA and India, continues to hold for years: `There is only one way to solve the Kashmir issue: jihad, jihad, jihad`. After ‘arresting’ Hafiz Saeed, the police in Lahore removed half of the flags of the Jaamat-u-Dawa in various city streets: readily replaced by other flags exalting the fight for Kashmir’s freedom. The 5th February, in fact, Pakistan is ‘Kashmir’s day’: so, nothing strange if in Lahore and surroundings the occasion will be celebrated with demostrations and war cries. What is surprising, however, is that the same occasion has been celebrated in Milan at Piazza Castello. In a rainy day, about two hundred people, rigorously all male, gathered to protest against the human rights violations in Indian Kashmir. In Italian, and for about twenty minutes during the four hours of the event. Because the entire event was in fact carried out almost exclusively in Urdu: and in Urdu, the narrative was completely different. Not only this. The Kashmiri, among participants, were relatively few: it was a majority of Pakistani, and in fact the slogan more used was not 'peace' but ‘Pakistan Zindabad'. You can discuss the opportunity to allow events that relate to a territory disputed between two countries with which Italy has diplomatic relations, but this is not the main problem. To organize the event was an organization called Tehrik-i-Kashmir: organization that has its headquarters in various European capitals and that is tied to double wire with both the aforesaid Jamaat-u-Dawa and Kashmir Center, an organization funded by ISI in order to put pressure on the governments and the European institutions and to collect funds. The event has been also joined by representatives of the Sikh community under the umbrella of 'Khalistan Khalsa': almost to prove, if there were any need, the truth of what for years Indian intelligence has been saying: that in recent years the Sikh terrorism, which seemed to be disappeared from the scene, is reorganising itself with the help of ISI and that has close links with the Islamic organizations fighting in Kashmir (and with official headquarters in Lahore) as the Lashkar-i-Toiba and Jaish-i-Mohammed. The show was frankly beyond comments: especially if you remember that from Brescia came some of the Sim card used in the Mumbai attack and some of the money used to finance the Uri attack. It almost seems that in Italy we are using the same Pakistani recipe: in Lahore Hafiz Saeed was repeatedly freed from so called house arrest because `has never made any offense in Pakistani territory`. With the same excuse, for years, Pakistan has given free hands, and continues to do so, to all jihadi organizations not targeting Pakistan but only India and surroundings: and for this the country paid at the end a very high price. Terror reached the streets of Pakistan, when the 'good' jihadi created and used by the secret services as dirty tool of foreign policy, have relaunched with higher stakes. The 'good' terrorists do not exist, there are only terrorists, of whatever nationality and with any name. And no civilized country should pretend not to see or not to understand.
Francesca Marino
@COOKIE1@
@COOKIE2@