Pakistan ready to ban LeT front organisation

ON THE TERROR TRAIL

Pressing the global community to act against terror emanating from Pakistan, India has asked the UN Security Council to ban Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), the front organisation of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), over the Mumbai attacks, prompting Islamabad to promise action if the world body proscribes the group as a terrorist outfit.

"Jamaat-ud-Dawa and other such organisations need to be proscribed internationally and effective sanctions imposed against them. Their country of origin needs to take urgent steps to stop their functioning," Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed said, while intervening in a debate on terrorism in the UN Security Council yesterday.

"A message must also go out that perpetrators of terrorist acts must be brought to book and not given sanctuaries in some states," he said.

The minister asked Pakistan to act against terrorism emanating from its soil, failing which India will "do everything to protect its citizens".

Close on the heels of Ahamed's hard-hitting remarks, Pakistan's Ambassador to the UN, Abdullah Hussain Haroon, promised that Islamabad would proscribe JuD should the Council decide to put sanctions on it after declaring it a terrorist group. Besides, no training camps for LeT or any entity of this nature would be allowed on its territory, he affirmed.

Significantly, China, a close ally of Pakistan, has in the past blocked three attempts to proscribe JuD in the Council, and now all eyes would be on what it does on the fresh move.

The US, backed by the UK and France, had twice tried to add JuD chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed to the list of individuals and organisations connected to terrorism last May, but the moves were blocked by China. A similar attempt in April 2006 was also blocked by Beijing.