KARACHI, Feb 9: Member of the legislative assembly Azad Jammu Kashmir and parliamentary leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement Azad Kashmir Tahir Khokar has criticized the recent statement of Jamaat-i-Islami chief Qazi Husain Ahmed in which he appealed for donation for the Jihad-e-Kashmir fund.

Mr Khokar said such appeals were nothing more than swindling the people of Karachi and playing with their sentiments.

Addressing a press conference at Karachi Press Club on Friday, Mr Khokhar who is also the organiser for MQM Azad Kashmir, said that religious parties particularly Jamaat-e-Islami for the last several decades was busy collecting money from people in the name of “Jihad-e-Kashmir.”

He alleged donations collected in the name of Kashmir hade never been audited.

He criticised the appeal made by Qazi Hussain Ahmed which he made on February 5 seeking donations and alms for the Jihad-e-Kashmir fund, and said such appeals were nothing more than fooling the people of Karachi.

He said the people of Kashmir have rejected JI but they are bent upon encashing the Kashmir cause.

He demanded stringent accounting of donations and alms collected over the past decades.

Mr Khokhar said that people should only make donations to those political parties who had provided relief to the Kashmiri people in the October 8 earthquake.

Mr Khokhar also appealed to people of Kashmiri origin who were living in NA-250 constituency to vote for the MQM candidate Mr Akhlaq Hussain in the by-election.