41 BANNED PAK GROUPS ACTIVE ON FACEBOOK

out of Pakistan’s 64 banned groups are operating on Facebook as groups or individual user profiles, a media report has said.

According to an investigation carried out by Dawn news, those active online are a mix of Sunni and Shia sectarian groups, global terror organisations operating in Pakistan, and separatists in Balochistan and Sindh provinces.

The names of all banned groups were searched on Facebook to find pages, groups, and user profiles that publicly “liked” a banned organisation.

The biggest on the social network, in order of size, are Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat with 200 pages and groups, Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz with 160, Sipah-i-Sahaba with 148, Balochistan Students Organisation Azad with 54 and Sipah-e-Muhammad with 45, according to the daily.

Others active on Facebook include Lashkar-e-Jhangvi , Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Tehreek-e-Taliban Swat, Tehrik-eNifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi, Jamat-ul-Ahrar, 313 Brigade, multiple Shia groups and a host of Baloch separatist organisations.

“An examination of some user profiles linked to these banned outfits indicates open support of sectarian and extremist ideology,” Dawn news said. A few of these profiles have also publicly “liked” pages and groups related to weapons use and training.

Some of the pages claim to be “official” and others are managed by sympathisers. AGENCIES

A senior US lawmaker, who was in Dharamshala earlier this month with a congressional delegation to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has lashed out against Chinese criticism of the visit and called it “negative and narrow-minded … (and) silly”.

The eight members of the House of Representatives, led by minority leader Nancy Pelosi, held public engagements with the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan community over two days, drawing criticism from the Chinese.

“That’s the negative and narrow-minded attitude that the Chinese government has taken,” Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives’s powerful Foreign Affairs Committee, told the HT, in the sharpest response yet of Beijing from a member of the delegation.

“If they have nothing to hide, then they shouldn’t mind us going. We can’t let the Chinese through political pressure or economic pressure make us forget about the plight of the