Islamabad: In the wake of Peshawar school massacre, Pakistan plans to ban 10 terror outfits, including 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat- ud-Dawa (JuD) and the dreaded Afghan-based Haqqani Network.
The ban on JuD is a significant development as India, as well as the US, have long considered JuD as a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror outfit involved in the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai that left 166 people dead.
The UN Security Council designated the JuD a front for the LeT after the Mumbai attacks. Since then, the UN and US have sanctioned several JuD leaders.
The move to ban these terror groups is seen by experts as a “paradigm shift” in the country’s security policy, even as US Secretary of State John Kerry reiterated that Pakistan needed to wipe out the terror networks plying from the country.
The US declared the fugitive chief of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Mullah Fazlullah as a ‘Specially Designated Global Terrorist’ on Wednesday. The group had claimed responsibility for the deadly Peshawar attacks where 150 people were killed, mostly children.
The Haqqani network, founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani, has been blamed for the Indian embassy bombing in Kabul in 2008 that left 58 people dead, a 2011 attack on the US embassy in Kabul, and several big truck bombing attempts in Afghanistan.
The US and Afghan officials have repeatedly said Pakistan’s spy agency ISI covertly backed the Haqqanis to extend its influence in Afghanistan, a charge Islamabad deny.
The group was designated as a terrorist organisation by the US in September 2012. Pakistan’s government and opposition parties have approved a wide-ranging National Action Plan against terrorism after Peshawar school attack that left 150 people dead, mostly students, in December.
Pakistan banned 12 new organisations days before Kerry visited Pakistan this week, officials at the interior ministry revealed. With this latest addition, the number of proscribed outfits in Pakistan will reach to 72.Â
(With inputs from PTI)