Lahore, Jun 19: Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), the parent body of banned terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba that carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks, has been allocated over Rs. 61 million in the budget for current fiscal by Pakistan's Punjab province government headed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's party PML-N.
Besides a grant-in-aid of over Rs. 61 million in its budget for fiscal 2013-14 for 'Markaz-e-Taiba', the largest centre of the JuD, the provincial government has allocated Rs. 350 million for setting up a "Knowledge Park" at the centre and other development initiatives.
Details of the allocations were presented in budget documents tabled in the Punjab Assembly on Monday by the PML-N government led by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
In his budget speech in the assembly, Finance Minister Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman announced that the provincial government "intends to establish a Knowledge Park in Muridkey".
He said the government had allocated Rs. 350 million for the park and several other initiatives in Punjab.
Shortly after the UN Security Council designated the JuD a front for the LeT in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, the Punjab government took over the centre in Muridkey.
At that time too, Punjab was ruled by the PML-N. Since then, the government has allocated money in its annual budget for the administration of the centre in Muridkey.
In 2009-10, the government provided more than Rs. 82 million for the administration of JuD facilities. In 2010-11, Chief Minister Sharif, using his discretionary powers, allocated two separate grants for JuD facilities.
The government granted Rs. 79.77 million for six organisations at Markaz-e-Taiba and a special grant-in-aid of Rs. 3 million for the JuD's Al-Dawa School System in several districts of Punjab.
Officials have said in the past that the allocations were needed to continue "welfare services" provided by the JuD's schools, dispensaries and hospitals across the province of 90 million.
In the past, the Punjab government defended its decision of allocating money to the JuD by saying the grants had been awarded for the administrator of the Markaz-e-Taiba.
There is no formal ban on the JuD and its chief, Hafiz Saeed, who lives freely in Lahore despite a 10-million dollar bounty on his head by the US.
