Islamabad won’t ban JuD, says it has no LeT links

“Pakistan had been portraying the JuD as a philanthropic organisation, which is misleading”.

Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s expected meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Russia on Friday, Islamabad has announced that it will not ban the Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) as it has found no evidence linking it to the terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

India has persistently demanded action against the JuD and the LeT, alleging their involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the issue is expected to come up for discussion during the meeting between the Prime Ministers on the SCO sidelines.

Media reports from Islamabad quoted Pakistan’s Minister for States and Frontier Regions Abdul Qadir Baloch as having said on the Senate floor on Tuesday that there was no “scope for banning the JuD anytime in the near future.”

He is reported to have said that the UN Security Council had in a resolution listed the JuD as the LeT with a new name, but no supporting evidence had been shared with Pakistan to establish the connection.

Foreign policy watchers in India say they are not surprised by Pakistan’s stand.

‘Deliberate denial’

“This is a deliberate denial on Pakistan’s part. There is hardly any new evidence that can be given [to prove the links] at this stage,” Rana Banerji, a former bureaucrat and a distinguished fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, told The Hindu .

He said Pakistan had been portraying the JuD as a philanthropic organisation, which is misleading.

“For the past few years there is an attempt in Pakistan to show the JuD as distinct from the LeT. But that still does not change its links with the organisation; it has the same leadership and the same office-bearers,” he said.