Jamaat funds

The Jamaat -e-Islami, a religion based political party, is doing brisk and booming business in Bangladesh, thanks to peoples' ignorance about religion. They mix up peaceful Islam with terror, hatred filled "Jamaati"Islam.

They have money. We wonder about their sources of funds. Jamaat was not a rich party during the pre -1971 years. We noticed various interesting and intriguing phenomena in the activities of this pseudo-religious outfit. Soon after Jamaat was declared 'Halal' by the government in the late seventies, they started collecting funds and training the party cadres in right earnest. Eyewitnesses attest that Jamaat and Shibir cadres were seen being imparted martial art training. These activities were probably part of their larger training programmes, which the party cadres undertook later on.

The oil price boom in the Middle East opened the Golden Gate for funds of this fundamentalist party. Now, they and their sympathisers own several industries, banks, trading houses etc. This probably is not the end of the funding story.

Have we ever pondered how the sister/brother pan-Islamic parties of 'Jamaat' in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India etc. collect funds and are financed? Strange philosophy and justifications guide them. They are deeply involved in drug -trafficking, gun running, arms smuggling, extortion and what not. They propound and believe that funding of activities for the 'good cause' of the propagation of their way of "Deen' and Islamic revolution justifies the illegal methods of earning the money. There are ample examples in the countries concerned.

Would the people and concerned government agencies start thinking and digging out the facts behind Jamaat funds?