Pakistan yet to ban JuD, Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation despite 21 Feb announcement, continues to put outfits under 'watch' list

New Delhi: Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and its charity wing Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) have not been banned by Pakistan despite its announcement a fortnight ago and the two organisations continue to be only in the list of groups under watch. According to the website of the Pakistan government’s National Counter Terrorism Authority (NCTA), which was updated on Monday, JuD and FIF are organisations under watch by Ministry of Interior under section 11-D-(1), Schedule-II of the Anti Terrorism Act 1997. The NCTA website said the notification regarding JuD and FIF putting them under the list of organisation under watch was issued on 21 February. However, before that the website had said that both JuD and FIF were placed on the watch list in January, 2017. [caption id=“attachment_4573491” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Hafiz Saeed. Reuters[/caption] On 21 February, the Pakistan government had announced that it had banned the JuD and FIF, amid intense global pressure to rein in the militant groups following the 14 February Pulwama terror attack that killed over 40 CRPF jawans. “This implies that Pakistan has lied on the ban on Jud and FIF. In fact, it has just altered the date of the watch list placement to fool the world,” a senior security official said. A spokesman of Pakistan’s Interior Ministry had said on 21 February that the decision to ban these two groups was taken during a meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC) chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan. “It was decided during the meeting to accelerate action against proscribed organisations,” the spokesperson had said in a statement. “It was further decided that Jamat-ud-Dawa and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation be notified as proscribed organizations by the Ministry of Interior,” he added. 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-Taiba (LeT) 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 US 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. Saeed was listed under UN Security Council Resolution 1267 in December, 2008. He was released from house arrest in Pakistan in November, 2017. The NCTA has so far declared 69 terrorist organisations as banned and a sizeable number of these organisations are based in Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The NCTA has has turned a blind eye to major militant groups such as the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and the Al Badr operating in Jammu and Kashmir.