ISLAMABAD, Nov 19: Pakistan is demanding cash pledges from almost 600 militants in a new attempt to prevent banned extremist groups re-emerging under new names, officials said on Wednesday.

The pledges are being sought as security bonds as an an alternative approach to mass arrests, which Pakistan used last year in an unsuccessful crackdown on militant groups.

“They are being asked to give surety bonds of good behavior. If they violate them we will arrest them and their surety will be forfeited,” a senior police intelligence official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Nearly 600 activists of militant groups outlawed on Saturday have been ordered to pay security bonds of up to 100,000 rupees, he said.

“This strategy is different to previous attempts when large-scale arrests were made because most of those people were subsequently released by courts.”

Four of the five groups outlawed by President Pervez Musharraf in January 2002 under his high-profile anti-extremist crackdown re-emerged under new names. Most of their 2,000 followers and their leaders were released after several months in jail.

Three of the groups were banned again on Saturday and a fourth was placed under surveillance under a new anti-militant drive.

Authorities have since shut down 137 offices of the banned groups and arrested one of their leaders, although his arrest was related to the murder of an extremist Sunni leader in early October.

Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said the government had chosen to seek “guarantees” from the militants instead of arresting them as “a new strategy.”

“We are not going for the arrest of members of these banned groups,” he told AFP.

“We are closing down their offices to deny them a forum. We are seeking guarantees from them that they do not indulge in such activities in the future.

“This is providing them an avenue to correct their behaviour. If they disobey the government ban again they will be punished.”—AFP