New Delhi, July 27: As Pakistan seeks dialogue with India, a section of Pakistani media has said that militant outfits continue to enlist youth from poor and middle class families in need of livelihood and run their operation from Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Pakistan's noted weekly "The Friday Times" said jihad was spreading despite attempts to plug it and highlighted the claim of several militant publications of having recruited more than 7000 youths from various parts of Pakistan.
The most high-profile outfits -- Lashker-e-Taiba, Jaish-e -Mohammed -- claim to have recruited more than 3,350 and 2,200 youths respectively.
"The young jihadis (militants) come from poor and middle-class families. When they fail to find any employment, they join the militant outfits that provide them food and shelter and promise them a passage to paradise through martyrdom," the weekly quoted an activist. The weekly said that a vast majority of the youths who join the radical militant outfits consist of run-away boys with 60 per cent comprising school dropouts.

Contrary to the claims of Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf of closing down camps in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, the weekly quoted chief of LeT Hafeez Saeed and JeM supremo Massod Azhar as saying they were running operations from the PoK.

Bureau Report.