Terrorist outfit Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) of Hafiz Saeed no longer a banned body in Pakistan

October 27, 2018:

Islamabad High Court was hearing a petition filed by Saeed challenging the ban on JuD & FIF.

A presidential ordinance that proscribed the Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) & Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF), both fronts for the Lashkar-e-Taiba founded by Hafiz Saeed, has lapsed, a top law officer has informed a court in Islamabad.

Deputy attorney general Raja Khalid Mehmood Khan of Pakistan  confirmed that the ordinance had lapsed on Thursday while the Islamabad high court was hearing a petition filed by Saeed challenging the ban on JuD & FIF.

Saeed’s lawyers Raja Rizwan Abbasi & Sohail Warraich told Justice Aamer Farooq of the high court that the ordinance had not been extended after it lapsed.

The ordinance was issued by in February by then president Mamnoon Hussain to amend the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 to proscribe terrorist individuals & organisations sanctioned under UN Security Council resolution 1267.

The move was primarily aimed at the JuD & FIF, which were only on a “watch list” maintained by the interior ministry, & aimed at deflecting pressure from the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, which had been approached by the US & other Western powers to put Pakistan on its “grey list” for failing to curb terror financing.

Despite the action taken by Pakistan, the FATF opted to put the country on its watch list in June. Since then, the FATF has finalised an action plan for Pakistan to comply with in order to be removed from the grey list by 2019.

According to a list updated on September 5 by Pakistan’s National Counter Terrorism Authority, 66 groups have been banned in the country but JuD & FIF are not among them.

The two groups linked to Saeed  continue to be “under watch by the ministry of interior” under the provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Source Link