Charity flag flutters over relief camp

Islamabad: The black-and-white flag of Jamaat-ud-Dawa still flutters over a relief camp for survivors of an earthquake that hit a remote corner of Pakistan in October.

But the medics who work with the group had vanished from the huddle of tents and mud huts when a half-dozen police personnel showed up to close the operation following allegations the charity was linked to militants blamed for the deadly Mumbai attacks in India.

Abdullah Muntazir, a spokesman for Jamaat-ud-Dawa, said dozens of the group's members, including nine of its 10 top leaders, had been detained. Others went underground.

Pakistan also has shut the group's offices across the country and frozen its accounts.

How Pakistan deals with the Islamic group - popular among many for its aid to the needy - is a key test of its pledge to help investigate the Mumbai tragedy and, more broadly, to prevent militants from using its soil to attack both India and Afghanistan.

The US and the UN say Jamaat-ud-Dawa is a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group India says trained and sent the gunmen who attacked India's commercial capital last month, killing 164 people and straining what had been improved relations between the countries. Lashkar-e-Taiba has been an unofficial ally of the Pakistan army in Kashmir, a disputed territory claimed by both India and Pakistan.

Some believe the moment has come for Pakistan to make clear it has abandoned a shadowy policy of using militant proxies as a foreign policy tool.