Donation boxes for Pakistan-based Dawat-e-Islami crop up in Kanpur

Even as Pakistan-based Dawat-e-Islami has been under scanner after the Udaipur killing, the donation boxes for the organisation were seen in Kanpur

Donation boxes for Pakistan-based Dawat-e-Islami has recently been spotted across Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur. Several shops in the city had the donation boxes with ‘Dawat-e-Islami’ written on it.

India Today found one of these donation boxes being kept at a shop. Some people had kept it a few days ago at a medical store in Parampurwa area. When we asked the owner of the store, he denied any information on the same.

Dr Faiz, medical store owner, said, “The person who kept the box said the money is for the children who studies in madrasa, and who could not afford education. The money was for their clothes, food, and books.”

“These days people donate in the mosque itself. This is a new trend that have started and God knows what is this for,” Dr Faiz said.

Notably, only a few months ago, the Sufi Khanqah Association had raised questions on the donation boxes installed in the shops in this way. Afterward, the boxes were removed, but they are once again being put up in front of shops in Kanpur.

The organisation, with its headquarters in Pakistan's Karachi, has been under the spotlight after it emerged that one of the two men who carried out a deadly attack in Rajasthan’s Udaipur had attended a Dawat-e-Islami event in 2014.

Kanpur Police also visited the office of Dawat-e-Islami in Deputy Padav area after the organisation's link with the Udaipur killing emerged. The police were investigating the organisation's possible link with the Kanpur violence.