MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan, October 14, 2005 (slamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Armed militants seeking independence in Kashmir are at the fore of the relief work in the quake-stricken capital of Pakistani Kashmir, setting up tented shelters, clinics for wounded survivors and burying unidentified bodies.

"They are our people. They are Kashmiri Muslims and we are here to help our people," Ghulam Ullah Azad, spokesman of Jamat-ud-Dawa, a charity linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the armed groups operating in Kashmir, told Reuters Friday, October 14.

"Authorities are asking us to carry out relief operations as they do not have the manpower and skill," added Azad.

Jamat-ud-Dawa says its members had set up tented shelter for 1,800 people, clinics for the injured, and were providing relief for 2,500 people after the earthquake flattened Muzzafarabad last Saturday.

The group has also buried hundreds of unidentified bodies pulled from the ruins of the city, according to Reuters.

The killer quake, which struck the Indian subcontinent Saturday, has wrecked havoc on the mountain city of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, with most houses, government buildings and shops totally collapsed.

Once a pretty riverside city of around 100,000, the 7.6 magnitude quake has left the city barely recognizable, looking like a "city of death".

The old part of the town was completely flattened with frightened residents spending chilly nights in the open, camping in fields, parks, graveyards and cars.

Many of fighters are seen driving ambulances and providing medical aid, food and tents. (Reuters)

Talat Masood, a former general and political analyst, foresaw some groups being strengthened by the goodwill earned bringing relief to beleaguered Kashmiris.

"They are working on the pattern of Hamas," he told Reuters, referring to the Palestinian resistance group.

"They have given themselves more of a humanitarian look to penetrate the masses."

Despite not wearing their uniforms, everyone in the earthquake-hit city know who the bearded, muscular men with Kalashnikov rifles at the fore of relief work are, Reuters said.

Kashmiri boys surround the gunmen, staring in open admiration at the men they presume to have fought the Indian Army on the other side of the ceasefire line dividing disputed Kashmir.

Many of the group's members can be seen driving ambulances and providing medical aid, food and tents, according to Reuters.

"I was under the rubble and rescued by them after two hours, not by anyone else," Reuters quoted as saying Raja Naeem, who was getting treatment in one of the camps run by the Jamat -- though most people call it Lashkar.

Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, another armed group fighting Indian rule, has similar relief operations in the city.

Latif Dar, who was injured in the quake, told Reuters the militant groups had been much faster than military and civilian authorities helping quake victims.

"They rescued hundreds of people and they are providing food, tents and medical aid to hundreds of others in areas where the army has not yet reached," Dar told Reuters.

"They may be seen as bad groups for Pakistan, but they are not seen as bad for Kashmiris."

Lashkar was banned in January 2002, a month after it was implicated in an attack on India's parliament that brought South Asia's nuclear rivals to the brink of war.

India has long accused Islamabad of backing the militants, saying they slip into Indian Kashmir from the Pakistani side.

Pakistan says it provides diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmiri groups, while accusing the Indian army of human rights abuses.