Hafiz Saeed, aide added to ATA's fourth schedule

The provincial government of Punjab has included names of Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and one of his close aides, Qazi Kashif, in the fourth schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA).

According to Dawn, a senior police officer privy to the development said on Friday that the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) added their names to the list of the 1,450 'fourth schedulers' on an order of the federal Interior Ministry.

The men were identified by the interior ministry as "active members of the Jamaatud Dawa and Falah-i-Insaniyat". The ministry directed the CTD to "move and take necessary action" against them.

The names of three prisoners transferred to Pakistan from Guantanamo Bay had also been placed on the list, he said.

Saeed was placed under house arrest on January 30 and his name has also been put on the Exit Control List.

The Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 empowers the government to mark a person as "proscribed" and to place that person on the fourth schedule on an ex-parte basis.