Pak continues crackdown, seals more JuD offices

Islamabad, Dec 12 (PTI) Stepping up operations against
terror groups, Pakistani security forces Friday sealed more
offices of the Lashker-e-Taiba's front organisation
Jamaat-ud-Dawah across the country and reportedly rounded up
dozens of its activists.

The clampdown, which started after sundown yesterday,
with the group's founder Hafiz Mohammed Saeed being put under
house arrest, continued Friday with JuD offices locked up in
other parts of the country.

The Pakistan government launched the operations after a
UN Security Council panel designated the Jamaat a front for
the LeT and placed four Lashker leaders, including Saeed, on a
list of terrorists subject to sanctions like travel ban and
assets freeze.

Interior ministry chief Rehman Malik told reporters that
the decision to crack down on the Jamaat was taken by
President Asif Ali Zardari after a series of meetings with
officials of the interior and foreign ministries Thursday.

Special Superintendent of Police (Operations) Chaudhry
Shafiq Ahmad told state-run APP news agency that Saeed had
been detained at his house in Block 116-E, Johar Town in
Lahore for three months.

A "heavy contingent of police (was) posted outside his
residence" last night, Ahmad said.

A report said Saeed was detained under the Maintenance of
Public Order Ordinance.

Media reports said dozens of Jamaat activists had been
detained in Punjab province, cities like Quetta and Mansehra
and other places but there was no official word on this
development.

The State Bank of Pakistan Thursday ordered all banks to
freeze the assets and bank accounts of the Jamaat and four LeT
leaders designated as terrorists by the UN Security Council.

Police said besides Saeed, seven other Jamaat leaders,
including Col (retired) Nazir Ahmed, Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki
and Zafar Iqbal, had been detained in their homes.

Jamiat-ul-Qadisia, the headquarters of the Jamaat at
Chowburji Chowk in Lahore, was sealed. Eighteen other Jamaat
offices across Punjab province, including five in Sialkot, too
were sealed.

Jamaat offices were also closed in Islamabad, Rawalpindi,
Kot Addu, Muzaffarabad, Peshawar, Mansehra, Kohat and Karachi.

In Quetta, police sealed the Jamaat office and detained
four activists. A camp opened in Ziarat by the group for
victims of the recent quake in Balochistan too was closed.

Attiqur Rehman Chohan, a spokesman for the Jamaat in
NWFP, told the Dawn newspaper from an unspecified place that
the group had decided to close its offices in Peshawar and
other cities and suspend its activities "for the time being".

Chohan said the Jamaat's leaders were in touch with the
NWFP government and major political parties and the ban on the
group would be raised in national and provincial assemblies.

A spokesman for the State Bank of Pakistan said the
central bank had frozen the bank accounts of the Jamaat, its
leaders and two sister organisations – Al-Rashid Trust and
Al-Akhtar Trust. PTI