Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Hundreds have been leaving the mosque to be monitored or tested for the virus
Officials across India are searching for hundreds of people who attended a religious event in the capital that has set off several Covid-19 clusters.
At least six regions have reported cases that can be directly traced to the days-long congregation at a mosque.
Delhi officials are now clearing the building, where more than 1,000 people have been stranded since the government imposed a lockdown last week.
At least 24 have tested positive so far, the state health minister said.
They are among some 300 people who showed symptoms and have been moved to various hospital to be tested, he told the media. Another 700 have been shifted into quarantine centres, he added.
It is believed that the infections were caused by preachers who attended the event from Indonesia.
State officials have called for action to be taken against mosque officials, but they have denied any wrongdoing.
Local media reports say that Nizamuddin – the locality where the mosque is located – has been cordoned off and more than 35 buses carrying people to hospitals or quarantine centres.
The congregation – part of a 20th Century Islamic movement called Tablighi Jamaat – began at the end of February, but some of the main events were held in early March.
It’s unclear if the event was ticketed or even if the organisers maintained a roster of visitors as people attended the event throughout, with some staying on and others leaving. Even overseas visitors, some of them preachers, travelled to other parts of the country where they stayed in local mosques and met people.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGES
So officials have no easy way of finding out how many people attended the event or where they went. But they have already begun to trace and test.
The southern state of Telangana reported on Sunday night that six people who had attended the event died from the virus. The state’s medical officer told the BBC that more than 40 of Telangana’s 71 cases were either directly or indirectly linked to the event.
Indian-administered Kashmir reported its first death from the virus last week – a 65-year-old who had been in Delhi for the congregation. Officials told BBC Urdu that more than 40 of the region’s 48 cases could be traced back to that one patient.
A cluster has even appeared in the distant Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where six of the nine who have tested positive, had returned from the Delhi event.
The southern states of Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have said more than 3,000 people from their states had attended the event, and Tamil Nadu has traced 16 positive patients to it.
States have also asked other people who attended to come forward for testing.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has asked for a police complaint to be registered against the head of the mosque.
However, the event’s organisers have issued a statement, saying they had suspended the event and asked everyone to leave as soon as Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that there would be a day-long national curfew on 22 March.
While many were able to leave, they say, others were stranded because states began to seal their borders the following day, and two days later, India imposed a 21-day lockdown, suspending buses and trains.
The mosque’s premises include dormitories that can house hundreds of people.
The organisers say they informed the local police about all of this and continued to cooperate with medical officers who came to inspect the premises.
The mosque, the statement says, “never violated any provision of law, and always tried to act with compassion and reason towards the visitors who came to Delhi from different states. It did not let them violate the medical guidelines by thronging ISBTs (bus stops) or roaming on streets.”
This is not the first time religious congregations have been blamed for the spread of coronavirus.
Tablighi Jamaat events have also been blamed for spreading cases in Indonesia and Malaysia.
And in South Korea, many positive cases were linked to the Schincheonji church, a secretive religious sect, that has since apologised for its role in the outbreak.
BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. President Donald Trump during a phone call on Friday that he would have China’s support in fighting the coronavirus, as the United States faces the prospect of becoming the next global epicentre of the pandemic.
The United States now has the most coronavirus cases of any country, with 84,946 infections and 1,259 deaths. Hospitals in cities like New York and New Orleans struggle to cope with the wave of patients.
Xi’s offer of assistance came amid a long-running war of words between Beijing and Washington over various issues including the coronavirus epidemic.
Trump and some U.S. officials have accused China of a lack of transparency on the virus, and Trump has at times called the coronavirus a “China virus” as it originated there, angering Beijing.
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In the call, Xi reiterated to Trump that China had been open and transparent about the epidemic, according to an account of the conversation published by the Chinese foreign ministry.
Trump said on Twitter that he discussed the coronavirus outbreak “in great detail” with Xi.
“China has been through much & has developed a strong understanding of the virus,” Trump said. “We are working closely together. Much respect!”.
The World Health Organization has said the United States, which saw 17,099 new coronavirus cases and 281 deaths in the past 24 hours, is expected to become the epicentre of the pandemic.
CHINA CUTS FLIGHTS
Like U.S. hospitals now, China’s medical system struggled to contain the coronavirus just two months ago, but draconian city lockdowns and severe travel restrictions has seen China dramatically ease the epidemic.
Mainland China on Friday reported its first local coronavirus case in three days and 54 new imported cases, as Beijing ordered airlines to sharply cut international flights, for fear travellers could reignite the coronavirus outbreak.
The 55 new cases detected on Thursday were down from 67 a day earlier, the National Health Commission said on Friday, taking the tally of infections to 81,340. China’s death toll stood at 3,292 as of Thursday, up by five from a day earlier.
The central province of Hubei, with a population of about 60 million, reported no new cases on Thursday, a day after lifting a lockdown and reopening its borders as the epidemic eased there.
The commercial capital of Shanghai reported the most new imported cases with 17, followed by 12 in the southern province of Guangdong and four each in the capital Beijing and the nearby city of Tianjin.
Shanghai now has 125 patients who arrived from overseas, including 46 from Britain and 27 from the United States.
In effect from Sunday, China has ordered its airlines to fly only one route to any country, on just one flight each week. Foreign airlines must comply with similar curbs on flights to China, although many had already halted services.
About 90% of current international flights into China will be suspended, cutting arrivals to 5,000 passengers a day, from 25,000, the civil aviation regulator said late on Thursday.
From Saturday, China will temporarily suspend entry for foreigners with valid visas and residence permits, in an interim measure, the foreign ministry added.
Before the new curbs, foreign nationals made up about a tenth of the roughly 20,000 travellers arriving on international flights every day, an official of China’s National Immigration Administration said last week.
As commercial flights dwindle, Chinese students from wealthy families are paying tens of thousands of dollars to fly home on private jets.
International demand for chartered and private flights into China increased 227% in March from a year earlier, said Shanghai-based private jet service provider iFlyPlus.
Notably, requests for flights from the United States to China rose 10-fold in late March, iFlyPlus told Reuters.
But in Delhi and the financial capital, Mumbai, people fearing shortages quickly thronged shops and pharmacies.
“I have never witnessed such a chaos in my life,” the owner of one store in the Shakarpur district of Delhi said, quoted by the Press Trust of India.
“All our stocks, including rice, flour, bread, biscuits, edible oils, have been sold out.”
Police in the busy city of Ghaziabad, in Uttar Pradesh state, patrolled the streets with megaphones to tell residents to stay indoors.
Image copyright AFPImage caption People in Mumbai rushed to stock up on essentials following Mr Modi’s address
Under the new measures, all non-essential businesses will be closed but hospitals and other medical facilities will continue to function as normal. Schools and universities will remain shut and almost all public gatherings will be banned.
Anyone flouting the new rules faces up to two years in prison and heavy fines.
In his address, Prime Minister Modi also:
Stressed that the 21-day lockdown was “very necessary to break the chain of coronavirus”
Emphasised the seriousness of the situation and said that even developed countries had faced problems in combating it
Said that “social distancing was the only way to stop” the virus spreading
Announced that nearly $2bn (£1.8bn) would be made available to boost the country’s health infrastructure
Called on people not to “spread rumours” and to follow instructions
His announcement came after several Indian states introduced measures of their own, such as travel restrictions and the closure of non-essential services.
India has already issued a ban on international arrivals and grounded domestic flights. The country’s rail network has also suspended most passenger services.
Many parts of India, including cities such as Delhi and Mumbai, are already under tight restrictions. But this move extends those provisions to every corner of the country.
An earlier one-day curfew, which was seen as a trial, was flouted by many.
Mr Modi called on Indians to clap and cheer the emergency services from their balconies on Sunday. But many misunderstood the call and congregated in the streets as they danced and chanted.
“It’s impossible to fathom the cost that India may have to pay if such irresponsible behaviour continues,” Mr Modi warned at the time. “Social distancing is the only option to combat coronavirus.”
The implications of a total lockdown in India are huge, not just economically, but socially.
This is a nation where community is everything. Going to worship at a temple, mosque or church is an essential part of daily life for so many.
This is a seismic cultural shift but – like the rest of the world facing similar restrictions – a necessary one.
What’s the latest from around Asia?
Neighbouring Pakistan has almost twice as many confirmed cases – 878 as of Monday evening. Sweeping restrictions are in place although the government has stopped short of imposing a nationwide lockdown. However, several provinces have announced them independently. The army is being brought in to help enforce the restrictions
Bangladesh, which has reported 33 cases and three deaths, is also deploying its armed forces to help maintain social distancing and boost Covid-19 preventive measures. The soldiers will also monitor thousands of quarantined expatriate returnees. Across South Asia, there are concerns that the actual number of cases could be much higher than is being reported.
Indonesia, which has 49 confirmed Covid-19 deaths – the highest in South East Asia – has converted an athlete’s village built for the 2018 Asian Games into a makeshift hospital for coronavirus patients. A state of emergency was declared in Jakarta on Monday
In Thailand, a month-long state of emergency which will include curfews and checkpoints will begin on Thursday. The government has been criticised for failing to take strong action so far. Four people have died and nearly 900 tested positive
The most populous country that was without a case until now – Myanmar – has announced two cases
And what about the rest of the world?
Elsewhere, governments are continuing to work to stem the spread of the virus which has now affected more than 190 countries worldwide
More than 2.6 billion people are in lockdown now India has introduced its new measures, according to a tally by the AFP news agency
Media caption Reality Check tackles misleading health advice being shared online
Europe remains at the epicentre of the pandemic. On Tuesday, the death toll jumped by 514 in a single day in Spain and other European countries also reported sharp increases
Italy is the worst affected country in the world in terms of deaths. The virus has killed almost 7,000 people there over the past month
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the US has the potential to become the new epicentre of the pandemic
In other developments, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the International Olympic Committee has agreed that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics should be postponed by a year
Image copyright NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HEALTH AND MEDICINEImage caption The 1918 flu pandemic is believed to have infected a third of the population worldwide
All interest in living has ceased, Mahatma Gandhi, battling a vile flu in 1918, told a confidante at a retreat in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
The highly infectious Spanish flu had swept through the ashram in Gujarat where 48-year-old Gandhi was living, four years after he had returned from South Africa. He rested, stuck to a liquid diet during “this protracted and first long illness” of his life. When news of his illness spread, a local newspaper wrote: “Gandhi’s life does not belong to him – it belongs to India”.
Outside, the deadly flu, which slunk in through a ship of returning soldiers that docked in Bombay (now Mumbai) in June 1918, ravaged India. The disease, according to health inspector JS Turner, came “like a thief in the night, its onset rapid and insidious”. A second wave of the epidemic began in September in southern India and spread along the coastline.
The influenza killed between 17 and 18 million Indians, more than all the casualties in World War One. India bore a considerable burden of death – it lost 6% of its people. More women – relatively undernourished, cooped up in unhygienic and ill-ventilated dwellings, and nursing the sick – died than men. The pandemic is believed to have infected a third of the world’s population and claimed between 50 and 100 million lives.
Gandhi and his febrile associates at the ashram were lucky to recover. In the parched countryside of northern India, the famous Hindi language writer and poet, Suryakant Tripathi, better known as Nirala, lost his wife and several members of his family to the flu. My family, he wrote, “disappeared in the blink of an eye”. He found the Ganges river “swollen with dead bodies”. Bodies piled up, and there wasn’t enough firewood to cremate them. To make matters worse, a failed monsoon led to a drought and famine-like conditions, leaving people underfed and weak, and pushed them into the cities, stoking the rapid spread of the disease.
Image copyright PRINT COLLECTORImage caption Bombay was one of the worst hit cities by the 1918 pandemic
To be sure, the medical realities are vastly different now. Although there’s still no cure, scientists have mapped the genetic material of the coronavirus, and there’s the promise of anti-viral drugs, and a vaccine. The 1918 flu happened in the pre-antibiotic era, and there was simply not enough medical equipment to provide to the critically ill. Also western medicines weren’t widely accepted in India then and most people relied on indigenous medication.
Yet, there appear to be some striking similarities between the two pandemics, separated by a century. And possibly there are some relevant lessons to learn from the flu, and the bungled response to it.
The outbreak in Bombay, an overcrowded city, was the source of the infection’s spread back then – this something that virologists are fearing now. With more than 20 million people, Bombay is India’s most populous city and Maharashtra, the state where it’s located, has reported the highest number of coronivirus cases in the country.
By early July in 1918, 230 people were dying of the disease every day, up nearly three times from the end of June. “The chief symptoms are high temperature and pains in the back and the complaint lasts three days,” The Times of India reported, adding that “nearly every house in Bombay has some of its inmates down with fever”. Workers stayed away from offices and factories. More Indian adults and children were infected than resident Europeans. The newspapers advised people to not spend time outside and stay at home. “The main remedy,” wrote The Times of India, “is to go to bed and not worry”. People were reminded the disease spread “mainly through human contact by means of infected secretions from the nose and mouths”.
“To avoid an attack one should keep away from all places where there is overcrowding and consequent risk of infection such as fairs, festivals, theatres, schools, public lecture halls, cinemas, entertainment parties, crowded railway carriages etc,” wrote the paper. People were advised to sleep in the open rather than in badly ventilated rooms, have nourishing food and get exercise.
“Above all,” The Times of India added, “do not worry too much about the disease”.
Image copyright PRINT COLLECTOR
Colonial authorities differed over the source of infection. Health official Turner believed that the people on the docked ship had brought the fever to Bombay, but the government insisted that the crew had caught the flu in the city itself. “This had been the characteristic response of the authorities, to attribute any epidemic that they could not control to India and what was invariably termed the ‘insanitary condition’ of Indians,” observed medical historian Mridula Ramanna in her magisterial study of how Bombay coped with the pandemic.
Later a government report bemoaned the state of India’s government and the urgent need to expand and reform it. Newspapers complained that officials remained in the hills during the emergency, and that the government had thrown people “on the hands of providence”. Hospital sweepers in Bombay, according to Laura Spinney, author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World, stayed away from British soldiers recovering from the flu. “The sweepers had memories of the British response to the plague outbreak which killed eight million Indians between 1886 and 1914.”
Image copyright PRINT COLLECTORImage caption The hospitals in Bombay were overwhelmed by patients
“The colonial authorities also paid the price for the long indifference to indigenous health, since they were absolutely unequipped to deal with the disaster,” says Ms Spinney. “Also, there was a shortage of doctors as many were away on the war front.”
Eventually NGOs and volunteers joined the response. They set up dispensaries, removed corpses, arranged cremations, opened small hospitals, treated patients, raised money and ran centres to distribute clothes and medicine. Citizens formed anti-influenza committees. “Never before, perhaps, in the history of India, have the educated and more fortunately placed members of the community, come forward in large numbers to help their poorer brethren in time of distress,” a government report said.
Now, as the country battles another deadly infection, the government has responded swiftly. But, like a century ago, civilians will play a key role in limiting the virus’ spread. And as coronavirus cases climb, this is something India should keep in mind.
BEIJING, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) — The number of daily new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection fell from a peak of 3,887 on Feb. 4 to 2,015 on Tuesday, with a decrease of 48.2 percent, according to the National Health Commission (NHC).
Noting that the epidemic situation remains grave at the moment, NHC spokesperson Mi Feng identified some positive changes in the statistics as a result of a series of effective measures.
For example, the number of newly reported suspected cases dropped by 37.3 percent from 5,328 on Feb. 5 to Tuesday’s 3,342.
He also highlighted the rapid increase in the number of people cured and discharged from hospitals, bringing the recovery rate to 10.6 percent by Tuesday from the lowest level of 1.3 percent on Jan. 27.
The overall confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland reached 44,653 by the end of Tuesday, and 16,067 people remain suspected of being infected with the virus.
A total of 4,740 people had been discharged from hospitals after recovery.
BEIJING, China (Reuters) – China ramped up measures to contain a virus that has killed 26 people and infected more than 800, suspending public transport in 10 cities, shutting temples over the Lunar New Year and even closing the Forbidden City and part of the Great Wall.
The week-long holiday to welcome the Year of the Rat began on Friday, raising fears the infection rate could accelerate as hundreds of millions of people travel to their homes and abroad in what is usually a festive time of year.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the new coronavirus an emergency for China but stopped short of declaring the epidemic of international concern.
While most of the cases and all of the deaths have been in China, the virus has been detected in Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States. It was likely Britain also had cases, a health official said.
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Symptoms include fever, difficulty breathing and coughing.
Most of the fatalities have been elderly, many with pre-existing conditions, the WHO said.
Cases are likely to continue to rise in China but it is too soon to evaluate the severity of the virus, a WHO spokesman said on Friday.
As of Thursday, there were 830 confirmed cases and 26 people had died there, China’s National Health Commission said.
In Wuhan, where the outbreak began last month, pharmacies were running out of supplies and hospitals were flooded with nervous resident seeking medical checks.
“There’s so much news, so much data, every 10 minutes there’s an update, it’s frightening, especially for people like us in a severely hit area,” Lily Jin, 30, a resident of the city, told Reuters by phone.
While restrictions have already been put in place in cities across the country to curb the outbreak, China will take stricter and more targeted measures, state television reported citing a state council, or cabinet, meeting on Friday, but gave no further details.
“The spread of the virus has not been cut off … Local authorities should take more responsibility and have a stronger sense of urgency,” state broadcaster CCTV said.
Most cases have been in Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have originated in a market that traded illegally in wildlife. Preliminary research suggested it crossed to humans from snakes.
The city of 11 million people, and neighboring Huanggang, a city of about 7 million, were in virtual lockdown.
Nearly all flights at Wuhan’s airport had been canceled, and airports worldwide have stepped up the screening of passengers from China.
Checkpoints blocked the main roads leading out of town, and police checked incoming vehicles for wild animals.
Wuhan was rushing to build a 1,000-bed hospital for the infected by Monday, the official Changjiang Daily reported.
About 10 people got off a high-speed train that pulled into Wuhan on Friday afternoon but nobody got on before it resumed its journey. Although it stopped there, Wuhan had been removed from the train’s schedule.
“What choice do I have? It’s Chinese New Year. We have to see our family,” said a man getting off the train who gave his family name Hu.
CHINA EMERGENCY
The WHO said on Thursday it was a “bit too early” to designate the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, which would require countries to step up their response.
Some experts believe the virus is not as dangerous as the one that caused the 2002-03 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which also began in China and killed nearly 800 people, or the one that caused Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, which has killed more than 700 people since 2012.
There is no known vaccine or particular treatment.
“There is some work being done and there are some trials now for MERS (vaccines). And we may look at some point whether those treatments and vaccines would have some effect on this novel coronavirus,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said on Friday.
Gilead Sciences Inc said it was assessing whether its experimental Ebola treatment could be used. Meanwhile, three research teams were starting work on vaccines, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations said.
In the meantime, Chinese authorities have imposed restrictions on movement and gatherings to try to stem the spread. It has advised people to avoid crowds and 10 cities in the central province of Hubei, where Wuhan is located, have suspended some transport, the Hubei Daily reported.
Some sections of the Great Wall near Beijing will be closed from Saturday, state media said.
Some temples have also closed, including Beijing’s Lama Temple where people make offerings for the new year, have also been closed as has the Forbidden City, the capital’s most famous tourist attraction.
Shanghai Disneyland will close from Saturday. The theme park has a 100,000 daily capacity and sold out during last year’s Lunar New Year holiday.
The virus is expected to dent China’s growth after months of economic worries over trade tensions with the United States, unnerving foreign companies doing business there.
Shares in luxury goods firms have suffered from the anticipated drop in demand from China, and on Friday French spirits group Remy Cointreau said it was “clearly concerned” about the potential impact.
MANILA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) — Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has offered condolences for the people killed in the series of strong earthquakes that devastated central and eastern Mindanao in the southern Philippines last month, saying China is ready to help the Philippine government in its efforts to rehabilitate the region.
In a message of sympathy sent to Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin on Saturday, Wang said he was shocked to learn that strong earthquakes had hit Mindanao, resulting in casualties and property damage.
“He (Wang) would like to extend sincere sympathy to the victims and the bereaved families,” the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines said in a statement.
“China is willing to offer assistance to the Philippines within our capacity, and believes that under the strong leadership of the Philippine government, the Philippine people will overcome the disaster and return to normal life at an early date,” it quoted Wang as saying.
On Friday, China announced a donation of 3 million yuan (about 434,896 U.S. dollars) to help the quake victims, mostly poor farmers.
The Philippine National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said in an updated report on Sunday that the Oct. 29 6.6-magnitude and the Oct. 31 6.5-magnitude earthquakes that hit several central and eastern Mindanao provinces had killed 21 people and injured more than 400 others.
Rescuers were still looking for two missing villagers, the country’s disaster agency said.
The agency said the two tremors also affected more than 178,000 people in 200 villages in the region. Nearly 22,000 displaced people were staying in makeshift tents, it added.
The agency said the quakes also damaged nearly 29,000 infrastructures in the region, mostly houses, school buildings, hospitals, roads and bridges.
Thirty-six others were hurt, with nine being treated for serious injuries
Bus had a tyre blowout and collided with road divider before slamming into truck in the opposite lane in Yixing, Jiangsu province, police say
The expressway reopened after a rescue operation of more than eight hours. Photo: Weibo
Thirty-six people were killed and another 36 injured when a coach had a tyre blowout and crashed into a truck on an expressway in eastern China on Saturday.
The coach, which had 69 passengers on board, collided with a road divider before slamming into a truck in the opposite lane at about 7am, the Yixing municipal police department said in a statement on Sunday.
There were three people in the truck.
The accident happened on the Yixing section of the Changchun-Shenzhen Expressway in Jiangsu province.
A rescue operation took more than eight hours, and the injured were taken to hospitals in nearby Yibing.
Nine people were seriously injured, 26 were being treated for minor injuries and one had been discharged from hospital, according to the statement.
A tyre blowout may have caused the accident on Saturday morning. Photo: Weibo
Police are still looking into the crash but said “according to our preliminary investigation, the accident was caused by a blowout of one of the coach’s front tyres”.
ahead of National Day and the week-long holiday marking it, as all levels of government try to make sure nothing goes wrong.
This month, local governments were told to check factories, restaurants, rental accommodation, scenic spots close to water and roads for safety hazards and to take measures to prevent fire, crashes or other accidents, according to media reports.
Traffic accidents are common in China, where about 200,000 people lose their lives on the roads every year, according to the World Health Organisation.
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan intensified its crackdown against Islamist militants on Thursday, with the government announcing it had taken control of 182 religious schools and detained more than 100 people as part of its push against banned groups.
The move represents Pakistan’s biggest move against banned organisations in years and appears to be targeting Islamic welfare organisations that the United States says are a front for militant activities.
Pakistan is facing pressure from global powers to act against groups carrying out attacks in India, including Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), which claimed responsibility for the Feb. 14 attack that killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police.
The escalating tension in the wake of the bombing led to a major confrontation between the nuclear-armed rivals, with both countries carrying out aerial bombing missions and even engaging in a brief dogfight that prompted fears of a war.
Pakistani officials say the crackdown is part of a long-planned drive and not a response to Indian anger over what New Delhi calls Islamabad’s failure to rein in militant groups operating on Pakistani soil.
Previous large-scale crackdowns against anti-India militants have broadly been cosmetic, with the proscribed groups able to survive and continue operations.
The interior ministry said law enforcement agencies had placed 121 people in “preventive detention” as part of the crackdown that began this week.
“Provincial governments have taken in their control management and administration of 182 seminaries (madaris)”, the ministry said in a statement, referring to religious schools.
What to do with madrasas is a thorny issue in Pakistan, a deeply conservative Muslim nation where religious schools are often blamed for radicalisation of youngsters but are the only education available to millions of poor children.
The interior ministry said other institutions from different groups had been taken over, including 34 schools or colleges, 163 dispensaries, 184 ambulances, five hospitals and eight offices of banned organisations.
Many banned groups such as JeM run seminaries, which counter-terrorism officials say are used as recruiting grounds for militant outfits
Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), which operates hospitals and a fleet of ambulances, is estimated to run about 300 madrasas across the country. Pakistan’s government banned the group this week.
JuD calls itself a humanitarian charity but the U.S. State Department has designated it a “foreign terrorist organisation” and calls it a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), a Pakistan-based group accused of orchestrating attacks in India, including the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people.
JuD called the crackdown unfair and said it would seek to counter the government action in courts.
“The whole nation is asking that what message the government wants to send by sealing welfare organisations and kicking students out,” said JuD spokesman Yahya Mujahid.
Pakistan has long used Islamist groups to pursue its aims in the region, but it has denied New Delhi’s accusations it actively supports militants fighting Indian forces in India’s part of Muslim-majority Kashmir.
The South Asian neighbours have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over Kashmir which they both claim in whole but rule in part.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGES
Image copyright GETTY IMAGES
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 