RAWALPINDI:  Local police have put  234 individuals on the watch list, while the Punjab Home Department considers putting another 97 persons living in the Rawalpindi division under surveillance for their links with banned outfits.

A senior police officer told Dawn that people thus nominated under the Fourth Schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 are required to inform police before leaving their hometown and on return too.

“If such an individual violates the law, a case is registered against him under section 11 of the ATA,” he said.

Of the 234 put on the watch list had links with groups like Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ), Sipah-i-Sihaba Pakistan (SSP), Lashkar-i-Taiba, Al-Badar Mujahideen,  Harkatul Mujahideen (HUM) and Jaish-i-Muhammad (JM) and Jamaatud Dawa (JUD).

Three of them were not found at their given addresses. “Police are after them and will locate them,” said Regional Police Officer Akhtar Umar Hayat Laleka.

Majority of them, 154, have residence in Attock, 55 in Chakwal, 24 in Rawalpindi and one in Jhelum. They were placed in categories such as Afghan Trained Boys (ATBs 17 in number) 25 Returnees from Afghanistan Prisons (RAPs 5), Returnee from Guantanamo Bay  (RGB 1), Tribal Trained Boys (TABs 2), Lal Masjid Elements (LME 28), individuals who got training of terrorists activities in the country or abroad (ITBs 28) and Pakistanis who took part in Afghan jihad.

Lal Masjid Elements include two women. One of them ran a madressah in her home in Asghar Mall Scheme, Rawalpindi, and the other is wife of a doctor residing in Satellite Town.

Surety bonds have been obtained from 21 of the 24 individuals put under watch in Rawalpindi district, and 19 have been fingerprinted.

Police sources said  the name of an individual on the watch list is removed if he or she shows good behaviour and peaceful conduct over three years.

Some of the individuals on the current watch list are employed in government organisations like Wapda, as salesmen or run their own businesses.

Strangely three of them are serving terms in Adiala jail for various crimes, and a few others are settled in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Sharjah and the US.

Published in Dawn January 22nd , 2015

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