Pakistan Buckles Under Pressure, Reportedly Bans Its 'Strategic Asset' Anti-India Terror Groups

For decades Pakistan nurtured and protected them as 'strategic assets' who would do their dirty job of "bleeding India with a a thousand cuts". Terrorists were given super stardom and a free run in Pakistan for their hatred for India and spreading separations and insurgency in Kashmir.

But, the recent terror attack by Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), one of the Pakistani military and government seems to have changed the equation. Following a diplomatic offensive by India post the Pulwama terror attack last month, some of Islamabad's strongest backers, including Saudi Arabia and China too have given Pakistan a cold shoulder and asked the country to reign in the outfits enjoying a free run in the country to de-escalate tensions tension with India.

REUTERS

Faced with the prospects of a global isolation and a crumbling economy Pakistan has finally began action against terrorists groups in the country.

In a major crackdown that began on Tuesday arrested 44 people for having links with proscribed organisations, including Hamad Azhar, the son of JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar and a close relative Mufti Abdul Rauf. The duo were named in the dossier handed by India to Pakistan on the Pulwama attack.

AP/ FILE

According to Pakistan Minister of State for Interior Shehryar Afridi the crackdown was launched under the National Action Plan (NAP) and that it would continue for two weeks.

The development comes just days after Foreign Minister Shah Muhammad Qureshi told an international media house that the Pakistan government was in touch with the JeM leadership and Azhar was unwell to the point that he cannot even leave his home while reiterating that there was no evidence to link to the terror outfit to the Pulwama attack.

Afridi, however, said the crackdown was based on NAP and not under pressure from anyone else.

He also clarified that the crackdown was across the board and not targeted against any one organization.

Another outfit feeling the heat is terrorist Hafiz Saeed's Jamat Ud Dawa (JuD) and Falah-i-Insaniyat (FIF), both running in Pakistan claiming to be charity organizations.

AFP

Assets including seminaries of JuD in Pakistan's Punjab province have been confiscated by the authorities there.

While Pakistan has in the past too detained the likes of Hafiz Saeed, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Masood Azhar under international pressure all those turned out to be meer eye washes and the terrorists who were released later went back to their daily business of spewing venom against India and calling for Jihad to liberate Kashmir.