Pakistan seizes madrassas in crackdown on militants
Imran Khan’s government said it seized 121 people and took over scores of madrassas as it intensified what appeared to be the biggest crackdown on banned extremist organisations in years.
Pakistan’s interior ministry said that as well as taking people into “preventive detention”, authorities had taken over 182 seminaries, 34 schools or colleges, five hospitals and 63 dispensaries.
The crackdown seemed to be targeting welfare organisations that America and India say are fronts for militant groups. It came as a grenade attack claimed by pro-Pakistan Kashmiri separatist group Hizbul Mujahideen killed one and wounded at least 32 at a bus stand in the town of Jammu in Indian-administered Kashmir.
India last week launched its first air strike in nearly 50 years on its neighbour, saying it had hit a training camp of the Jasih-e-Mohammad group Delhi blames for a suicide bombing that killed 40 police officers.
Pakistan but denies any role in the Pulwama attack last month.
This week’s crackdown was long planned and not in response to Delhi’s demands that Islamabad tackle JeM, it said.
JeM has been banned since 2002, but continues to operate freely in Pakistan, according to the US.
Another group, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which runs hospitals and a fleet of ambulances, is said to be a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is accused of orchestrating the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
The international community has for years put pressure on Pakistan to rein in the militants, but previous crackdowns have at times appeared largely for show.
The most recent US State Department assessment of terrorism in Pakistan said the country “did not take sufficient action against other externally focused groups such as LeT and JeM” and that they “continued to operate, train, organise, and fundraise in Pakistan”.
Some analysts believe the country’s powerful military establishment, which dictates national security policy and has been accused of sponsoring militants, has now decided they are becoming a liability.
Pakistan has been warned it faces international financial sanctions unless it tackles the groups’ cash streams.
Many banned organisations such as JeM run madrassas, which are often used to recruit, radicalise and train youngsters into a life of militancy, counter-terrorism officials said.
India last week claimed to have bombed one such madrassa near Balakot in Khyber Pakhtukhwa province. Satellite images show that the JeM madrassa was unscathed.