The Pakistan government on Thursday sealed the Lahore headquarters of proscribed group Hafiz Saeed’s Jamaat-ud-Dawa and its charity organisation Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation, the Hindustan Times reported. The two were added to the list of proscribed organisations on Tuesday.
The Punjab Home Department in a statement said it had taken over the headquarters, madrassas and other facilities of the two groups “under the National Action Plan”. The Jaamat-ud-Dawa and Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation are considered to be “terrorist fronts” for the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Law enforcement agencies began the crackdown on banned groups on Tuesday, by detaining more than 100 people, and took control of 182 schools till Thursday. The Pakistan government also claimed it had detained Masood Azhar’s brother Mufti Abdur Rauf. Azhar is the chief of the terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad, which had claimed responsibility for the suicide attack in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir on February 14.
“The operation against proscribed organisations is an ongoing process and continues under National Action Plan 2014,” the country’s Interior Ministry said in a statement. “Interior ministry is actively working in coordination with provincial governments and law enforcing agencies.”
Pakistan’s Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said under the National Action Plan, “Pakistan will not allow anyone to use its soil against any other country”, reported The Express Tribune.
Chaudhry said activities of proscribed groups were already been banned in the country and that additional measure were taken up to comply with Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental body that sets standards for fighting illicit finance globally.
Chaudhry said the country may face rising gas and electricity bills as a result of being blacklisted by the FATF, Dawn reported. “Keeping that in mind, the government has to keep the economy as well as the country’s well-being as supreme,” he said.
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