An injured woman at Chakothi, 58 km south of Muzzafarabad. (Reuters)

Islamabad, Nov. 2: Islamic radicals have strengthened their popular support in Pakistan by taking advantage of the government’s initially faltering aid relief for earthquake victims.

Islamic groups are widely regarded as having provided the most efficient aid operations in some areas after the earthquake on October 8 in Kashmir and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

A growing number of Islamist leaders say the earthquake was divine retribution for the pro-US policy of President Pervez Musharraf and have renewed calls for Islamic law to be implemented.

In NWFP, a controversial Taliban-style bill has been revived by the ruling six-party religious alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA). The provincial justice minister, Malik Zafar Azam, said the earthquake was the result of God’s wrath at man’s misdeeds.

The new law would appoint a watchdog called Hisba, or accountability, to uphold Islamic values. His words were echoed by another Islamist politician in the province, Prof. Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, leader of the Jama'atud Dawa.

He said: “Even un-Islamic elements have admitted that these [Islamist] religious organisations are working for the cause of humanity.

“We will set up villages of 100 tents each. They will have dispensaries and mosques.” He added: “We must enforce Islamic law in the country? the earthquake is a punishment for what the rulers have done to please the US.”

Immediately after the earthquake, the best organised aid relief came from groups such as Pakistan’s main radical Islamic party, Jamaat i-Islami, which previously backed the Taliban government of Afghanistan.

Near the militarily sensitive Line of Control that divides Pakistani Kashmir from its Indian counterpart, several Islamist groups have been praised by normally hostile sectors of the Pakistani media for providing aid relief.

Lashkar-e-Toiba is believed to have provided aid to locals near its base in the area. So too is Hizb ul-Mujahideen, the largest extremist group fighting in Kashmir.

The groups were able to steal a march over the Pakistan army as they know the mountainous terrain.British and American soldiers are now providing aid for earthquake victims in the same areas as Islamic groups such as the al-Rasheed Trust.