Pakistan shuts down seminaries run by Jaish-e-Mohammad

Pakistan has shut down several religious schools run by the Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group, Punjab province’s law minister has said.

Eleven days after Pakistani terrorists attacked an IAF base in Pathankot, Pakistan said on Wednesday it had detained terrorist leader Maulana Masood Azhar who India says plotted the mayhem. Instead Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is said to be considering a joint probe into Pathankot even as there have been some arrests of lower-level JeM cadre. “We look forward to the visit of the Pakistani SIT…and our agencies will extend all necessary cooperation to bring the perpetrators of the attack to justice”, he said.

Both the countries had yesterday agreed mutually to defer the Foreign Secretary level talks that were to take place here today.

In Islamabad, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qazi Khallullah said Pakistan and India had agreed to reschedule the foreign secretary-level talks in the very near future.

Asked as to why the talks have been deferred when India was welcoming the Pakistani action against JeM, Swarup said the Foreign Secretaries felt that some more time was required before they meet “away from the shadow” of the investigations into the terror strike.

Mr Sanaullah said other offices and seminaries administered by Jaish-e-Mohammad were also raided and closed, in addition to numerous arrests.

Pakistan banned the group in 2002, the year after it was blamed for an attack on the Indian parliament that took the two neighbours to the brink of war.

“We note the apprehension of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) members”. Meanwhile, Pakistan Spokesman in a statement said the PIA office in New Delhi was ransacked on Thursday by a group of extremists. Media reports about Azhar had emerged after the government had announced on Wednesday that several individuals belonging to JeM had been apprehended based on initial investigations in Pakistan as well as the information provided by the Indian side.

Rauf and Ahmed were two others named by India as handlers of the attacks which jolted Pathankot air force base on January 2.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a surprise visit to Pakistan last month which was seen as a potential sign of thawing relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. They were captured in various parts of the Punjab province, considered the seat of Azhar’s group.

Interestingly, this was also echoed by the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“Whenever there are peace talks between India and Pakistan, somehow terrorism rears its ugly head”.