With the continuous mounting pressure from the United States, the Pakistan interior ministry on Saturday blacklisted 26/11 Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed’s organisation Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and several other terror outfits, reported Pakistani media.
According to Express News, Pakistan interior ministry in a press release made public as many as 72 groups banned by it, which also include a subsidiary of JuD known as Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, along with Lashkar-e-Tabia of Saeed and Jaish-e-Mohammad of Masood Azhar.
The press release said that Pakistan has also blocked financial aid of any sort to the blacklisted organisations. It added that providing any kind of assistance to any of the blacklisted organisations, financially or otherwise, would be a punishable offense with imprisonment up to 10 years along with a hefty fine.
The advertisement lists 72 groups, including Jamat-ud-Dawa, Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation and Lashkar-e-Tabia of Saeed and Jaish-e-Mohammad of Masood Azhar.
It said that according to Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 of Pakistan and under UN Security Council act of 1948 it was a crime to provide funding to those groups which have been banned or are on the watchlist.
The move comes a day after the US suspended about $2 billion in security aid to Pakistan for failing to take action against Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network terror groups and dismantle their safe havens.
Earlier on Saturday, Hafiz Saeed served a Rs 100 million legal notice to Pakistan’s defence minister for “defamation”, days after Islamabad banned the JuD from collecting donations following US President Donald Trump's outburst against Islamabad's sheltering of terrorists.
Earlier this month, Pakistan's financial regulatory body had banned Saeed's organizations from collecting donations.
In January last year, the Pakistan government had launched a crackdown against JuD, placing Saeed under house arrest.
However, Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Saeed, was released in November 2017 after the Lahore high court refused to extend the period of his confinement.
Following his release, terrorist Saeed announced entry into politics and said that he will be contesting the 2018 general elections in Pakistan.
