Waqas, Umar debate foreign aid to seminaries with Arshad Sharif
- By Anees Hanif -
- Jan 31, 2015
Discussing the question raised in senate by PPP senator Sughra Imam over the Punjab police report denying such aid to seminaries, Akram said that he is an eye witness of banned outfit clerics collecting foreign aid from countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya and even South Africa.
He claimed that if a common Pakistani like him buys a car, owns a house he cannot afford, he is inquired about the means but these clerics spend at will and none has the guts to ask them about the income source.
Speaking in ARY News talk show ‘Power Play’, the PML-N leader said that senators should have the guts to tell police to subject the clerics to traditional police inquiry methods and they will speak the truth.
The program host Arshad Sharif presented a 2008 Wikileaks cable which said financial support estimated at $100 million a year was making its way from those Gulf Arab states to an extremist recruitment network in Punjab province.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) economic genius, Asad Umar while speaking on the issue claimed that the actual report of such funding should be demanded from State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) adding that the government should also ask friendly countries as to why they are not sending money through banking channels.
He further said that money flowing in the country through the banking channel and even money changers can be tracked and brought on record but cash transactions are an exception.
-Background-
Through an Interior Ministry report, the government of Pakistan for the first time, admitted that close to 80 seminaries operating in Pakistan are receiving financial support to the tune of Rs300 million from different countries.
Senate session on Friday saw heavy debate over the Punjab Home Department’s claim that no madressah (seminary) in the province received foreign aid.
It must be noted that blocking the funding sources of extremist networks and terrorist groups was one of the major points on Pakistan’s National Action Plan against terrorism.