LAHORE - Authorities yesterday shut down several religious schools run by Jaish-e-Muhammad accused of masterminding an attack on an airbase in India this month, the provincial law minister said.
The crackdown in the Punjab, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s power base and the headquarters of Jaish-e-Muhammad, follows the arrest of several members of the group, including its leader, Maulana Masood Azhar.
The government has said it is clamping down on Azhar’s group while it is investigating Indian assertions that the January 2 attack on the Pathankot airbase was carried out by Jaish-e-Muhammad.
“Officials of the Counter-Terrorism Department raided the Jamiat-un-Nur seminary in the Daska area and arrested more than a dozen people,” Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said.
“The seminary has been sealed off and documents and literature have been confiscated from the premises," Sanaullah said, adding several other offices and seminaries run by Jaish-e-Muhammad had also been raided and shut down, with many of its staff arrested. He declined to share further details.
In a TV interview, Sanaullah confirmed Azhar had been taken into “protective custody” and said legal action would be taken against him if his involvement in the Pathankot attack was proved ‘beyond doubt.’
The January 2 attack on the airbase in Pathankot was followed by a raid on an Indian consulate in Afghanistan that has also been linked to Jaish-e-Muhammad.
India has urged Pakistan to take action against the group and announced the two countries would reschedule talks of their foreign secretaries.
Jaish-e-Muhammad is blamed for a 2001 attack on India’s parliament that nearly led to a war between the nuclear-armed rivals.