KARACHI, Jan. 16 (IslamOnline) - Following the ban on five sectarian and Jihadi organizations, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Tuesday directed all the banks and non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) to immediately freeze the bank accounts of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT), Jesh-e-Muhammad (JeM), Sipaha-e-Sahahba Pakistan, Tehrik-e-Jafria Pakistan and Tehreik-e-Nifaz-e-Sharia Muhammadi.
The LeT and JeM are Kashmiri resistance organisations that are trying to apply the UN resolutions which allows Kashmir to choose to either be a part of India or Pakistan.
In his recent speech, Pakistani President Musharraf vowed there would be no softening of Pakistan's stance on Kashmir, the divided territory that has been the cause of two of the three wars between the nuclear rivals since independence in 1947.
The reason was they “have been declared proscribed organizations by the federal government under Anti Terrorism Act 1997”, said an official handout issued in Karachi.
Meanwhile, sources close to the banned groups believe that the respective defunct organizations have either already drawn the maximum amount from their respective accounts or have been operating the accounts in the names of individuals, who could not easily be traced.
According to banking sources, the defunct TNSM, which enjoys a brute support in the country’s northern areas, does not maintain any account in the party’s name in any foreign or local bank.
However, it may have a few accounts in the names of party supporters, sources added. The military government has already frozen the bank accounts of Al-Rasheed Trust, and Ummah Tameer—e-Nau, following the Bush administration’s decision to put them on the State Departments official list of terrorist groups.
