Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), led by Mumbai attacks mastermind Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, has been included in an official circular of organisations that Pakistani security agencies have to keep an eye on during the upcoming festival of Eid-ud-Zuha.
An official circular issued recently by the interior ministry directed police to maintain a watch on several groups including the JuD and the LeT, and to prevent their members from collecting hides of slaughtered animals. The JuD, though, is yet to be formally banned by the government.
Such groups collect thousands of hides that are later sold to raise funds.
The other militant groups named in the circular are Lashker-e-Taiba, Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariah Muhammadi, Hizbut Tehrir, Kharunas International Trust and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.
The Sunni Tehrik has been placed under observation, officials said.
The interior ministry directed law enforcement agencies to bar these the groups from collecting hides during Eid, which will be celebrated on November 28.
"There is a dire need of monitoring the banned organisations, especially those working with new names," the ministry said. Several banned groups have re-emerged with new names.
The JuD has renamed itself Falah-e-Insaniyat while the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi have been working as Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan and Islamic Students Pakistan respectively.
The banned Jaish-e-Mohammad and Jamiat-ul-Ansar have continued their activities as Khudam-ul-Pakistan and Jamaat-ul-Furqan respectively.
The Tehrik-e-Jafria Pakistan and Sipah Mohammad Pakistan are active under the new name of Islami Tehrik-e-Pakistan.
After the Mumbai attacks in November last year, interior minister Rehman Malik and other Pakistani leaders repeatedly claimed the JuD had been banned.
They had said the ban was imposed after the UN Security Council imposed restrictions on the JuD and its leaders.
However, when two cases registered under an anti-terror law against JuD chief Hafiz Saeed came up in Lahore high court last month, the government acknowledged that the group had never been formally banned.
The court subsequently quashed the two cases against Saeed, described by India as the mastermind of the Mumbai attacks.
A senior law officer told PTI that the new circular asking security agencies to keep an eye on certain groups was a "mere announcement".
He said, "After facing embarrassment in court, the government should have immediately issued a notification about putting the JuD in the list of proscribed organisations".
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