Encounter with a jehadi over a cup of tea

PAKISTAN DIARY

One does not expect to meet that dreaded breed, the jehadi, strolling around in a five-star hotel, and much less expect to be sipping a cup of tea with one of them, minutes later.

A spokesperson for a banned militant outfit, he looks the part with a flowing beard, the mandatory shalwar kameez and a prominent dark qatta on his forehead marking him out to be a devout follower of the five-times-a-day namaz regimen.

"I have come to listen to Rahman Saheb (Fazlu Rahman, leader of the orthodox Muslim MMA in Pakistan) speech," he says.

While his considerable girth gives him an intimidating look, our jehadi turns out to be savvy and gregarious, not in the least likely to blow himself up as a human bomb.

"Yeh sab off the record rahe, hum banned hain na," (Let this be off the record, we are banned, you see) he says before settling himself on a chair, looking curiously at ease with Indians. Spooning two tea spoons of sugar in an incongruously delicate china cup, he proceeds to demolish all preconceived notions of the Jehadi.

"The US presence in Afgh-anistan has harmed us," he admits, "but it is Kashmir, which is keeping us in business," he says with a chuckle. This "professional" outlook is designed to shock, and it does. In fact, the business of jehad, he says, is not so good nowadays.

""Hamari dukaan jo hai thodi chal nahi rahi, hamare recruitment bhi kam ho rahe hain, kyon ki kaam sirf Kashmir main hai, (Our recruitments have come down with only Kashmir as a "work place")," he says.

He speaks of the "the good old days when General Zia-ul-Haq was in power, and we were chasing the Russians in Afghanistan," with all the enthusiasm of a College Alumni at a reunion.

His organisation, which operates now under a changed name, is not going on any great fund raising drives. "After the ban, we continue to remain low profile, in fact our rivals, the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) have actually suffered more due to the crackdown on Sunni militants outfits after several attacks on Shia's," he says.

The JeM has a determinedly Sunni outlook. Maulana Masood Azhar, the JeM chief in fact has not been seen since the Punjab high court ordered that he be put under house arrest in Bahawal-pur last year under the Maintenance of Public Order Act. "Even his own people do not know where Masood Azhar is," he says.

Reflecting the shadowy world of Jehad, he cracks a joke at the expense of Azhar. "Actually, the Pakistani establishment thinks that Masood Azhar is an Indian agent, since he remained in an Indian jail for 9 long years, who knows what forces worked on him?" he laughs loudly, doing the American hi-five with a companion.

The Indo-Pak peace process leaves him cold. "If Palestine did not get anything after Oslo, then the Kashmiris too might get short changed," he says. "The talks will continue, even if Pakistan and India do not want it as the US is exerting too much pressure," he says.

The interview ends with a fervent prayer that the ban ends soon. "Aap bhi dua karein, (you too pray to god)," he says, quite forgetting the nationality of his interviewer. When reminded he adds an escape route, "salaamati ki dua to kar hi sakti hain (you can least wish that I remain safe)," he says.