Masood Azhar addresses a meeting of Pakistan’s religious and political parties in Islamabad. Photo credit: SAEED KHAN/AFP/GettyImagesBank accounts of 5,100 terror suspects containing more than Rs 400 million, including that of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar, have been frozen by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).
According to reports, officials from Pakistan’s interior ministry and SBP claimed that all the suspects are registered in the Fourth Schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997, with Azhar included in “category A”. Suspects included in “category A” of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997, are those who pose an exceptional or high risk.
Other high profile suspects subjected to the same restrictions are, Maulana Abdul Aziz of Islamabad’s radical Lal Masjid, Ahmed Ludhianvi of the Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat, Matiur Rehman of Al Qaeda Pakistan and Qari Ehsan of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
This has been corroborated by the national coordinator of the National Counter-Terrorism Authority. Authorised documents disclosed that bank accounts of 3,078 suspects from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the tribal areas, 1,443 from Punjab, 226 from Sindh, 193 from Balochistan, 106 from Gilgit-Baltistan, 27 from the Islamabad Capital Territory and 26 from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir have been frozen.
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