Pak.-sponsored militancy may escalate: report

WASHINGTON, APRIL 2. Pakistan-sponsored militancy in the garb of `jihad' (holy war) in Jammu and Kashmir is expected to escalate as Islamic militants are undaunted by the U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton's rebuff to Islamabad on the issue during his visit there, a leading American newspaper said today.

A sprawling `university', the ``intellectual and economic'' nerve centre of the fast-growing Islamic movement Markaz al-Dawa and its armed wing, Lashkar-e-Taiba, is apparently taking the lead in spreading the message of `jihad' in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the world, the Washington Post reported.

The Islamic institution at Muridke, about 48 km from Lahore, has 1,000 students, who are taught subjects such as science, English, Arabic and Koranic studies along with `jihad', it said. New buildings to train ``jihadis'' against India were rising among wheat fields in the area, the paper said.

``Our mission is to educate scholars who can preach Islam and spread it all over the world... to wage jihad wherever Muslims are oppressed,'' the paper quoted Mr. Hafiz Sayeed, the 53-year- old founder of the university, as saying.

- PTI

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