Pak PM reluctant to take stern action against JuD: Report

TIL Desk/World/Islamabad/ Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi reversed his decision to take stern action against Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Falah-i- Insaniyat Foundation fearing that any such move could trigger a political crisis, a media report said.

Pakistan has come under intense pressure to rein in terror groups after US President Donald Trump accused the country of harbouring terrorists and suspended nearly USD 2 billion in security assistance to it.

The JuD is believed to be the front organisation for the LeT which is responsible for carrying out the Mumbai attack that killed 166 people. It has been declared as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US in June 2014.

At a meeting, Abbasi said both the outfits “should be banned but Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was of the view that if these organisations were banned at this point, the government would be facing a similar crisis which it faced in November,”  citing two different sources who attended the meeting last month.

In November, sit-in by supporters of Islamist organisation Tehreek Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah led by Khadim Hussain Rizvi in Faizabad had paralyzed the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi.