Pakistan bans Hafiz Saeed's Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Falah-e-Insaniat, India says who are they fooling

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD: Under pressure from the global community to act on the issue of terror, Pakistan on Monday banned 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed's Jamaat ud Dawa(JuD) and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FiF) by issuing the United Nations Security Council (Freezing and Seizure) Order (SRO), 2019.

The objective of the UNSC (Freezing and Seizure) Order 2019 is to make sure UN Security Council Sanctions are applied on designated individuals and entities such as JuD and FiF.

The UNSC sanctions list includes the names of al-Qaeda, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, JuD, FiF, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other organisations and individuals.

This SRO overrides all the previous local listings of any organization and under it, assets of terror groups are frozen and taken over by Pakistani govt.

But India has dismissed the actions taken. Top government sources while speaking to WION said, "JUD, LeT, FiF have been banned by UN since 2009. So is Pak saying they are following that decision now?  If so what were they doing all these many years."

Adding, As the saying goes, "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"

Pakistan's flip flop was very visible as earlier in the day a list from Pakistan's Interior ministry's NACTA or the national counter-terrorism authority of Pakistan included JuD and FiF under the organisation "under watch" despite declaring publically on February 21 that both were banned.

The decision to ban these organisations was taken after the National security committee meeting was held under the chairmanship of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan in February.

The announcement of the ban came during the Financial Action Task Force or FATF meet in Paris from February 17-22 where Pakistan was under much pressure to act on terror.  

FATF in its release after the week-long meet had slammed Islamabad saying that the country has not demonstrated a "proper understanding" of the Terror Financing risks posed by Da’esh, AQ, JuD, FiF, LeT, JeM, HQN, and persons affiliated with the Taliban.

In the aftermath of Pulwama terror attack on 14th February that killed more than 40 CRPF personnel in Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan has been called out by US, France, UK, Australia, Japan, EU, Germany to act on terrorism.