In a bid to stay off from being blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF), the Pakistan government and the Pakistani army has frozen a total of 964 assets belonging to the banned Islamic terror groups Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).
It must also be noted that these two Islamic jihadi outfits are considered as state assets by the Pakistan Army to carry out terror attacks against India and Afganistan. Just a while back JeM Emir, Masood Azhar had spoken to his supporters to continue the Jihad against India.
This action is being seen by many as cosmetic as it involves elements in terror financing and money laundering efforts towards fulfilling its obligations and requirements of the FATF 27-point action plan.
As per the Interior Ministry, 907 of the frozen assets belonged to the JuD and 57 to the JeM.
Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan said, “A total of 611 properties of the JuD were frozen in Punjab, 108 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 80 in Sindh, 61 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir), 30 in Balochistan and 17 in the Islamabad Capital Territory,”.
“Eight properties of the JeM were frozen in Punjab, 29 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 12 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, four in the Islamabad Capital Territory, three in Sindh and one in Balochistan,” he added.
Giving details, Khan said: “The frozen properties of the JuD include 75 schools, four colleges, 330 mosques and seminaries, 186 dispensaries, 15 hospitals, 62 ambulances, a funeral bus (hearse), three disaster management offices, 10 boats, 17 buildings, a plot, agricultural land and two motorcycles.”
The frozen assets of JeM, Khan said, include “53 mosques and seminaries, two dispensaries and two ambulances”.
Pakistan has been on the FATF ‘ grey list’ and with the help of China and Turkey it has managed to avoid being blacklisted. However, it remains to be seen if Pakistan has complied with all the 27 points of the Action Plan given by FATF.