At least 56 seminaries and facilities being run by JuD and its wing FIF in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province have been taken over by authorities.
Pakistan authorities on Thursday sealed the Lahore headquarters of Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawah and its charity wing Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) as part of the ongoing crackdown against the banned organisations.
At least 56 seminaries and facilities being run by JuD and its wing FIF in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province have been taken over by authorities.
Pakistan on Thursday said it will ‘soon’ respond to a dossier handed over to it by India on ‘specific details’ of involvement of the Jaish-e-Mohammad in the deadly Pulwama terror attack as also the presence of camps of the United Nations-proscribed terror outfit in the country.
“It’s being evaluated and a response would be given soon,” Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammad Faisal told reporters in Islamabad.
The JeM had taken the responsibility of the attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district on February 14.
Responding to questions during his weekly media briefing, Faisal claimed Pakistan ‘defeated India militarily, diplomatically and politically in the ongoing border row, which has de-escalated over the past few days’.
“Our desire is peace but when we talk it is considered weakness,” he added.
On the Kartarpur corridor, Faisal said it was a project initiated by Prime Minister Imran Khan and Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, for which a Pakistani delegation will be visiting India on March 14.
He said India first suggested that meeting be held in New Delhi, which Pakistan accepted, however, the venue was later changed to Attari.
“Pakistan again agreed with Indian suggestion and if circumstances are not changed until March 14, then the Pakistani delegation will visit India,” he said.
India and Pakistan agreed to open up a special border crossing linking Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan’s Kartarpur — the final resting place of Sikh faith’s founder Guru Nanak Dev — to Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India’s Gurdaspur district to facilitate visa-free visit of Indian Sikh pilgrims to Kartarpur.
The Sindh government confirmed that it has taken control over 56 facilities being run by these proscribed organisations.
“The Sindh government also decided to move against the proscribed organisations after the crackdown started by the Centre,” advisor to the Sindh chief minister on Information and Law, Barrister Murtaza Wahab said.
The confiscation of properties of JuD and FIF comes after Pakistan formally placed them in the list of banned organisations on Tuesday.
‘Under the National Action Plan (NAP), the government has taken complete control of the banned JuD and FIF headquarters in Lahore and Muridkey,’ said a statement issued by the Punjab Home department on Thursday.
It said the government has been taking over the control of the mosques, seminaries and other institutions of the banned organisations in the province.
“We have intensified action against the banned organisations,” it said.
A senior government official told PTI that the authorities have sealed the Jamia Masjid Qadsia, the Lahore headquarters of the JuD and FIF.
The official said the government has also taken over the complete control of the JuD headquarters in Muridke, some 40-km from Lahore. However, the home department did not confirm it.
The official further said that Saeed and his supporters did not protest when the administration and police reached there to take over the control of the building.
“Saeed along with his supporters left for his Jauhar Town residence,” he said. The whereabouts of Saeed was immediately not known.
Saeed was listed under UN Security Council Resolution 1267 in December 2008. He was released from house arrest in Pakistan in November 2017.
According to officials, JuD’s network includes 300 seminaries and schools, hospitals, a publishing house and ambulance service. The two groups have about 50,000 volunteers and hundreds of other paid workers.
The JuD is believed to be the front organisation for the Lashkar-e-Tayiba which is responsible for carrying out the Mumbai attack that killed 166 people. It had been declared as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US in June 2014.
The United States Department of the Treasury has designated its chief Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and the US, since 2012, has offered a $10 million reward for information that brings Saeed to justice.
According to Pakistan’s National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) list, which was updated on Tuesday, the JuD and FIF were among 70 organisations proscribed by the Ministry of Interior under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.
“The Federal government has declared both organisations as proscribed so we have also taken over the welfare and educational facilities being run by the two outfits in the province,” he said.
He said the schools, medical facilities and seminaries being run by the JuD and FIF will now be run by the provincial government.
The advisor said the two banned outfits were running their seminaries, schools and medical units in many parts of Sindh including Karachi, Matiari, Jamshoro, Sanghar, Tando Allahyar, Badin, Naushero Feroz and Shahdadkot.
According to officials, JuD’s network includes 300 seminaries and schools, hospitals, a publishing house and ambulance service.
The two groups have about 50,000 volunteers and hundreds of other paid workers.
Saeed was listed under UN Security Council Resolution 1267 in December 2008. He was released from house arrest in Pakistan in November 2017.
The NACTA has so far declared 70 terrorist organisations as banned and a sizeable number of these organisations are based in Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
Already, government has arrested at least 44 individuals of various banned groups.
Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar’s son and brother were among 44 members of the banned terror outfits taken into ‘preventive detention’, Pakistan said on Tuesday, amid mounting pressure from the global community on it to rein in the terror groups operating on its soil.
The crackdown came amid tensions with India following a suicide attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district on February 14 by Jaish-e-Mohammed terror group that killed 41 Central Reserve Police Force soldiers.
India last week handed over the dossier to Pakistan to take action against the JeM, as pressure mounted on Islamabad to take action against individual and organisation listed by the UN Security Council as terrorists.
Source: Rediff