JuD to hold vicarious funeral for Mullah Omar in Islamabad

Published July 31, 2015
A JUI-I worker in Quetta paints a banner eulogising deceased Taliban chief Mullah Omar. – Photo courtesy Asmatullah
A JUI-I worker in Quetta paints a banner eulogising deceased Taliban chief Mullah Omar. – Photo courtesy Asmatullah

ISLAMABAD/QUETTA: Jamaatud Dawa (JuD), a self-proclaimed charity working in Pakistan, announced holding vicarious funeral prayers for the deceased Taliban chief tomorrow afternoon in an Islamabad mosque.

According to JuD spokesman Asif Khursheed, the group’s central leadership, including Hafiz Saeed, will attend the funeral.

Mullah Omar’s death was officially announced by Afghanistan on Wednesday, after a BBC report had cited unnamed Afghan sources saying Omar had died 2 to 3 years ago.

A day later, the Afghan Taliban also confirmed their chief’s death saying “his [Mullah Omar's] health condition deteriorated in the last two weeks of his illness” and “not for a single day did he go to Pakistan,” contradicting Afghanistan’s official stance that Omar had died in Karachi.

JuD is a controversial organisation, which was added to the banned outfits list by Pakistani authorities at the start of the year, along with the Haqqani network.

Take a look: Haqqani network and JuD banned.

The US State Department last year named JuD as a “foreign terrorist organisation,” a status that freezes any assets it has under US jurisdiction.

The group calls itself a humanitarian charity but is widely seen as a front organisation for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), a Pakistan-based group accused of orchestrating attacks in India, including the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people.

The JuD is also listed as a terror outfit by the United Nations and its chief (Hafiz Saeed) has a $10 million US government bounty against him.

JUI-I holds public meeting to mourn Omar’s death

Meanwhile, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam—Ideological, a pro-Taliban political party, on Friday held a condolence reference and a public meeting to mourn the demise of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar in Balochistan’s capital city.

Similar public meetings to condole the demise of Omar are set to be organised in Quetta and other districts of Balochistan, said Maulana Abdul Qadir Looni, provincial chief of the JUI-Ideological, while addressing a crowded press conference in Quetta. Senior JUI-Ideological leaders Abdul Sattar Chishti and Qari Mehrullah were also present during the press conference.

The political party, which had a legislator each in the National Assembly and the Balochistan Assmebly in the previous governments, also announced support for Taliban's newly appointed chief, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor and his cabinet.

Opinion

Editorial

Lawless city
22 Sep, 2023

Lawless city

A GRIM milestone has just been passed in Karachi. The recent death of a teenage robbery victim brings the number of...
Another Sharif trip
22 Sep, 2023

Another Sharif trip

THE sudden arrival of former prime minister Shehbaz Sharif in London, a mere 48 hours after he touched down in...
Delayed elections
Updated 22 Sep, 2023

Delayed elections

If ECP wishes to affirm that it is serious, it should start moving on all pending matters so that the possibility of any further delay is minimised.
What next?
Updated 21 Sep, 2023

What next?

One wonders that if administrative measures were all that were needed to arrest the rupee’s sorry slide, why were they not taken sooner?
Greater representation
21 Sep, 2023

Greater representation

PAKISTAN now stands at a significant juncture, with the names of 11.7m more women added to the voter list, ...
Lost generations
21 Sep, 2023

Lost generations

IF those who wield power in Pakistan think that the nation can progress when tens of millions of its children have...