More insidious is the hidden and potentially long-term impactof the natural disaster on the socio-political landscape of the region, whichhas for long been the epicentre of the Kashmir jihad. For instance, thequake has destroyed almost all the schools in PoK. District Bagh (100 km fromMuzaffarabad) had 341 schools for a population of 500,000 while Muzaffarabad,capital of PoK, had 1,512 schools for a population of 900,000 people. Virtuallyall school buildings in these areas have been flattened out, and thousands ofstudents face an uncertain future, especially with the Pakistan Prime MinisterShaukat Aziz himself indicating that reconstruction and rehabilitation ‘wouldtake decades’. The jihadi groups, within such a milieu, would find itfar easier to bolster their ranks. According to Mohammad Amir Rana, there aremore than 1,200 Madrassas (seminaries) in PoK being run by groups likethe LeT, JeM, HM, Al-Badr, Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen, Al-Barq, Harkat-ul-Mujahideenand Jamaat-e-Islami (some of these, would, no doubt, also have been damaged ordestroyed by the earthquake). Further, the extremists are also propagating theview that the quake was the ‘punishment of God’ (Azab-e-Elahi) forabandoning the jihad.