Hafiz Saeed among five leaders put under house arrest

Assets of JuD, Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation frozen; Nisar says govt fulfilling responsibilities under UN resolution; US visa restrictions not to affect terrorists, but terror victims; missing bloggers have returned home

ISLAMABAD: Law enforcement agencies have put chief of Jamatud Dawa Hafiz Saeed, along with four other leaders, under house arrest in Lahore. Well-placed sources said that he has been detained in Qudsia Masjid, Chobuerji, Lahore. 

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said that the issue of Jamatud Dawa will be cleared within a day. He said that Jamatud Dawa was under observation of the Security Council of the United Nations since 2010.

"We are fulfilling our responsibilities under the UN resolution," the minister said while talking to media persons after inaugurating a state-of-the-art executive passport office in the Blue Area of the federal capital.

Chaudhry Nisar said the visa restrictions imposed by the US would not affect terrorists but cause difficulties for the victims of terrorism. He said it was wrong to link Islam with terrorism, adding that 1.5 billion Muslims live peacefully in the world. However, only a handful of wayward people were negating the teachings of Islam. He said the worst sufferers of terrorism were Muslims and they had given the most sacrifices against this scourge.

To a question, he said all the missing bloggers have returned home, safe and sound. He said the steps taken by the present government to recover the missing persons had also been acknowledged by the concerned families.

About the News Leak issue, Nisar said he would be in a better position to comment as soon as the report on the issue is received, adding that the commission investigating the matter has time till February 7 to present its report.

Earlier, the minister said 14 more executive passport offices would be set up in different parts of the country soon in order to provide standard facilities to citizens. He said work was in progress on such centres in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta and Gujranwala and these would be inaugurated by March this year. He said with the inauguration of this office in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, the ministry had accomplished another milestone in establishing a network of these modern offices for public facilitation. 

The minister said the government was taking solid steps to provide modern facilities to citizens. He said work was also in progress on a scheme under which a passport office would be established in each district. Nisar said by March this year, each district in the country would have a passport office which would cater to needs of the local community. He said during the past 69 years, only 94 passport offices were established but the present government has started work on the scheme and 74 more such offices would be ready within the next few months. The minister said a number of Nadra mega offices will also become operational this year in all the major cities.

Meanwhile, to comply with the conditions of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for maintaining Pakistan on the white list, the government has decided to put Jamatud Dawa and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) into a watchlist and approved freezing of their assets, cancelling passports and arms licenses under the UN resolution 1267, The News has learnt.

The government has issued instructions to all concerned departments, including the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), commercial banks, law enforcement agencies at the federal level including FBR, FIA as well as provincial governments to implement all these orders with immediate effect and share compliance report with their respective departments.

Pakistan is going to submit its compliance report to FATF today (Tuesday) on account of implementing money laundering laws in an effective manner, which will be a pre-requisite to maintain the country in the white list of FATF.

In case of non compliance, the country might have slipped into grey and negative and danger zone in terms of labelling the country in the negative list on account of terrorism financing.

“The government has approved action against the JuD and FIF with immediate effect under which all assets will be frozen, travel ban will be slapped and arms embargo will be imposed under the UN resolution 1267,” a top economic wizard of the government told The News.

On assets freezing, the UN resolution 1267 states that all states are required to freeze without delay the funds and other financial assets or economic resources of designated individuals and entities. On travel ban, it states that all states are required to prevent the entry into or transit through their territories by designated individuals.

On the arms embargo, the UN resolution binds that all states are required to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale and transfer from their territories or by their nationals outside their territories, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, of arms and related materiel of all types, spare parts, and technical advice, assistance, or training related to military activities, to designated individuals and entities.

The Paris-based FATF had removed Pakistan from its grey list and elevated it to the white list in 2015 following Islamabad’s legal and procedural actions vis-à-vis anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT).

Pakistan had to take a number of steps to address FATF’s concerns, but the presence of some unfriendly countries in the group had caused a delay in Pakistan’s removal from the grey list.

Now again efforts were made from unfriendly countries to put Pakistan into the grey list and subsequently the negative list at the FATF forum. However, the government has decided to meet all the pre-requisites for submitting its compliance report by fulfilling all requirements to maintain the status of the country on the white list at FATF.

The FATF, an inter-governmental body, was founded by the G-7 Group in 1989 to set standards for AML/CTF. It had placed Pakistan on its grey list in Feb 2012, meaning that the country was not fully compliant with standards set by the FATF for combating money laundering and terrorist financing.