KARACHI: As an international watchdog takes up Pakistan’s request to remove it from a non-compliant list, both the political and security establishment feel confident about pleading the country’s case on the basis of strong measures taken over the past few years addressing the concerns raised by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), government sources said on Saturday.

“The government has taken many measures to address the concerns raised by the FATF but it is unfortunate that least is being shown in media,” said a source. “Just to highlight a few important steps, the people should know that all moveable and immoveable assets of Jamaatud Dawa and Jash-e-Muhammad have been taken over by the government through respective provinces. Similarly, the educational institutes and madressahs earlier run by these organisations are now being run by the provincial education ministries and such hospitals by the health ministries, respectively.”

The provincial governments, he said, had appointed administrators to monitor these institutions. He said that not only these institutions had been completely taken over but also the salaries of the staff were paid and appointment of the staff was made through the provincial governments.

“For the first time, there is complete harmony between all law enforcement agencies and a comprehensive mechanism has been formulated to check and monitor individuals belonging to all banned organisations effectively,” said the source. “Strict vigilance and monitoring system has been put in place to ensure that no untoward activity happens in these institutes or by individuals. Workers of banned organisations have been categorised into hard core and normal.”

About the core workers, he said those people had been arrested and trialed in local courts. Many, he added, had been convicted of their association with terror financing and others were being trialed. There had been a lot of convictions leading to imprisonment of such outlaws, he said and added that a lot of such people had either been arrested or detained keeping the nature of their crime into account.

The 4th Schedule list had been updated and all individuals having any link with terrorist organisations had been added in the list, said the source, citing measures about the reforms in the list.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2020