Daily Times

The Islami Jamiat-e-Tulaba (IJT), the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), has metamorphosed into a bit of a joke in recent times — one that is more sardonic than funny. The IJT resorts to violence ostensibly to safeguard their much touted ideology of peace; vie to safeguard women’s integrity by harassing them into conforming to their version of modesty; declare a man responsible for the killing of thousands of fellow citizens a ‘martyr’; earn their proverbial bread and butter courtesy anti-US chants despite supporting the US being a part of their raison d’etre, and sometimes they set buses ablaze merely days after complaining about the lack of buses on their campus.

Last week, IJT activists clashed with policemen, the Punjab University (PU) administration and, for all practical purposes, most of Lahore, after being ordered to clear hostel number 16 for the accommodation of girls, which resulted in chaos and a traffic blockade on University Road. Hostel number 16 and hostel number one are renowned hubs of the IJT but that was not the only reason the PU administration took the decision to convert it to a girls’ hostel. It was also a manoeuvre to balance skewed accommodations since, despite formulating virtually half of the student strength in the university, the girls still do not have sufficient rooms.

For the university administration, it was an act of hitting two birds with one stone but, for the IJT, the stone struck the spot where it hurts them the most since it pinched the organisation’s nerve centre with booze, bhang and bullets being dug out of rooms in hostel number 16. While the former is one of the many aspects that add scorn to the sardonic joke, it is the latter that makes it not quite so funny, especially after a member of al Qaeda’s ‘suicide squad’ was arrested from the hostel in September this year after being sheltered by the IJT.

When the mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, was arrested from a JI women’s wing leader’s house in Rawalpindi almost a decade ago, the JI’s links with al Qaeda were — or should have been — established. However, handlers of the terrorist organisation’s suicide squad staying in university hostels is a different kettle of fish altogether.

The newly surfacing alliance between the IJT and al Qaeda is more menacing than the many linkages that exist of the establishment and political parties, going all the way down to the grassroots. The IJT have their stranglehold in most top universities and colleges in Pakistan while the JI has a massive financial influx solely dedicated to bolstering the aforementioned alliance under the shroud of running schools, madrassas and charities.

The killing of Abdur Rehman, an IJT activist in a drone strike in North Waziristan on November 29, 2013, has further thrown some extremely deadly cats among very vulnerable pigeons. Abdur Rehman, who was involved in the Mehran Naval Base attack, was an NED student, expelled from the university owing to severe shortage of attendance. The fact that he was killed in a drone strike adds credence to the security agencies’ claim that members of the IJT are now well and truly an active part of al Qaeda. And have been for over a decade now.

While the security agencies have unravelled how IJT activists have been recruited to be trained by al Qaeda (a process started by the Islamic Medical Association’s president, Dr Arshad Waheed) over the past decade, echoes of the JI and IJT being banned are reverberating from various quarters as well since the ‘Shaheedgate’ episode starring JI chief Munawar Hassan, which saw the establishment turn against its historic chum. Even so, a more pertinent question than the potential banning of the JI is ensuring the security of campuses all over Pakistan where the IJT is providing ‘guest rooms’ for al Qaeda terrorists to stay in. When some of the most wanted terrorists are seen ‘hanging out’ in some of the biggest universities in the country, the vulnerability of the security situation is self-explanatory.

The JI and the IJT are proving themselves to be a political smokescreen for terrorist organisations, and their reaction following Hakeemullah Mehsud’s killing showcases where their allegiance lies quite unambiguously. Maybe taking a leaf out of Bangladesh’s book would be a great idea for Pakistan but, before that, some serious security measures need to be taken to make sure the sardonic joke of student politics is purged out of university campuses. For, the worst of worst fears could come true if al Qaeda has the last laugh.

The writer is a financial journalist and a social critic. He tweets @khuldune and can be reached at khulduneshahid@gmail.com