ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has ordered that the bank accounts of all foreign citizens residing on Pakistan be scrutinised and each account holder’s source of income be ascertained.

He issued the directions during a meeting held to review progress on the National Action Plan to counter terrorism and extremism. The minister was informed that foreigners’ bank accounts had been identified. However, he insisted that it should also be ascertained how these accounts were opened and information about the account holders’ sources of income and business details be obtained as well.

According to an official statement, the minister directed the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) to share its database of foreigners with provincial governments.

Interior minister orders ministry to reconcile list of banned groups with UN list

Chaired by the minister, the meeting was informed that a ‘draft counter-terrorism narrative’ had been formulated and would be finalised shortly after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s approval. Officials Dawn spoke to said that the meeting decided to involve notable media personalities, academics and religious scholars to generate a national debate. As part of the initiative, schools, colleges and universities will be asked to have special lessons and include chapters in their syllabus that focus on how terrorism has affected the country.

The meeting, which was also attended by the interior secretary, Nacta national coordinator, Federal Investigation Agency director general and the Islamabad chief commissioner and inspector general, discussed progress on NAP’s various components. It also reviewed the implementation of directives issued by Chaudhry Nisar at the last meeting, held on Feb 3.

A bill aimed at making the possession of illegal mobile SIM cards a cognisable offence has been tabled in the National Assembly and is currently in the hands of the sub-committee concerned, the meeting was told. Participants were also informed that work was under way to enable the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block any “unwanted activity relating to extremism and militancy” on social media.

On the enforcement of the proscription regime, Chaudhry Nisar directed the interior ministry to fine-tune the procedure and said a proper system should be put in place to ensure that banned organisations didn’t re-emerge with new names.

The meeting was informed that so far 60 organisations have been declared proscribed and one has been added to the watch list. But the minister directed the interior secretary to coordinate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to reconcile the national list with the United Nations Security Council’s Sanctions List. Currently, there are at least half a dozen organisations – including the Harkatul Mujahideen and Haqqani network – that are on the UN list but have so far not made it to Pakistan’s list of banned organisations.

The meeting was also informed that 26 cases had been registered on account of money laundering, 32 people had been arrested and Rs71 million recovered from them. At least 16,344 search operations have been conducted and 218,220 people picked up. As many as 12,462 persons have been arrested and 140 of them are suspected to have links with terrorists. Law enforcement agencies registered 3,265 cases of misuse of loudspeaker with 2,065 arrests and the confiscation of equipment in 1,281 cases. Another 547 cases have been registered over distribution of hate material and promotion of hate speech. 

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2015

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