Pakistan bans UN-designated terror groups: report

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has promulgated an ordinance to ban outfits that the United Nations (UN) has designated as terrorist organisations. The ordinance amends the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 and enables authorities to freeze the assets of 27 such outfits, including Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa, according to a local English daily. 

President Mamnoon Hussain signed the ordinance last week, but it was made public on Monday. It goes into effect immediately.

The UN Security Council had banned these groups, and the ordinance will enable Islamabad to seal the offices of these groups. The anti-terror funding wing of Pakistan’s National Counter-Terrorism Authority will now work with relevant authorities and recommend possible courses of action, India Today reported.

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan had already banned these organisations and individuals involved in them from collecting donations in the country.

The move comes days before global terror-funding watchdog Financial Action Task Force meets in Paris from February 18 to February 23. It was feared that the task force, under pressure from the United States and India, would place Pakistan on its greylist.