Banned groups with new names not to be spared under Pak law

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has amended an anti-terror law allowing authorities to act against members of outlawed groups that set up new outfits with different names, a move which may have ramifications for LeT whose founder Hafiz Saeed floated JuD after it was banned.

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has amended an anti-terror law allowing authorities to act against members of outlawed groups that set up new outfits with different names, a move which may have ramifications for LeT whose founder Hafiz Saeed floated JuD after it was banned.

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An ordinance promulgated yesterday by Zardari to amend the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 stated that if "office bearers, activists or associates of a proscribed organisation form a new organisation under a different name, upon suspicion about their involvement in similar activities, the said organisation shall also be deemed to be a proscribed organisation."

The government may then "issue a formal notification" about the proscription of the new group formed by members of a banned organisation, it said.

Soon after the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) was banned in Pakistan in the wake of the 2001 attack on Indian Parliament, its founder Saeed floated the Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), describing it as a charitable organisation.

The UN Security Council declared the JuD a front for the LeT after last year's Mumbai terror attacks and imposed restrictions on Saeed.