THARA WELFARE TRUST

6 Whitelands Road High Wycombe Bucks HP12 3EQ United Kingdom

Tel/Fax 01494 638972 Email: admin@tharawelfaretrust.org.uk

PRESS RELEASE

THARA WELFARE TRUST UK

Issue date: 5 February 2008

THARA WELFARE TRUST UK

On 3 February 2008 the News of the World published an article entitled "Evil on Benefits" about a fake charity, whom they claimed raised money for terrorist activities using the cover of a girls madrassa in Pakistan. It was also suggested that it had hijacked the name of registered charity Thara Welfare Trust UK ("Thara") to legitimise their fundraising.

Thara Welfare Trust, as the article concluded, is a ‘wholly legitimate charity based in High Wycombe with no involvement’ in ‘any terrorist activities’. The trust has indeed no connection with the alleged activities and furthermore condemns any terrorist related activities.

We are a small, wholly accountable charity working in a difficult part of the world- Kashmir. TWT raises money for the Andrahl region in Kashmir to help support impoverished people in that area. Born after the devastating earthquake that struck areas of Kashmir in 2005, the charity provided immediate support to victims in the form of shelters, food and blankets. TWT, a small charity, has recently purchased 2 ambulances to transport the sick to various hospitals and medical centres for treatment. Such service is provided in an area where at time of emergency there is no access to any transport let alone an ambulance service. The service is provided free to the poor and needy. The trust has contracted with m/s Christian Hospital located at Faisal Shaheed Road, Texila Pakistan, to provide medical treatment, particularly cataract operations, on poor patients sent by TWT. The trust funds these medical operations.

It is extremely important to TWT that it distributes money to legitimate causes in Pakistan. To ensure that money is only raised for benign purposes, TWT insists that its own committee, based in Pakistan and fully supervised by the trustees, provides photographic footage of any project to which the trust is asked to contribute.

Furthermore, all the trusts volunteers are personally known to the charity's trustees and deposit 100% of any money collected into the charity's bank account. The trust only uses trusted volunteers or collects money via collection boxes which are kindly displayed mostly in High Wycombe based shops. Our collection volunteers will carry a badge with photo I.D.

The Trustees of the trust are investigating the possibility of legal action against those mentioned in the article to recover money that was ostensibly donated to TWT but was alleged by the News of the World to have been distributed to support terrorist activities.

Notes to Editors:

Thara Welfare Trust UK, Charity Number: 1112702 is a small charity based in High Wycombe set up to fund projects in the Kashmir region of Pakistan. The charities incomce for the year ending 31^st October 2006 was £28,060. As a fully accountable and open charity our accounts and reports are available from the Charity Commission and can be viewed on their websites along with www.Guidestar.org.uk.

ENDS

Media Enquiries:

Arman Alam

Trustee

Thara Welfare Trust UK

(T) 01494 638972

(F) 01494 638972

email: admin@tharawelfaretrust.org.uk

website: www.tharawelfaretrust.org.uk