Islamabad: Pakistan was under pressure on Thursday to clamp down on an Islamic charity after the UN declared the group a front for the group blamed for the Mumbai terrorist attacks.
At the prompting of India and the US, a Security Council panel late on Wednesday declared Jamaat-ud-Dawa a terrorist group subject to UN sanctions including an asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo.
Pakistani government officials could not be reached immediately on Thursday for comment on how they will respond to the decision. However, officials have said they are already weighing tough measures against the group.
Washington says the charity is a front for the banned terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, blamed by India for the terrorist attack last month that killed more than 200 people in Mumbai.
A crackdown on Jamaat-ud-Dawa would underpin the promise by Pakistan to pursue the Mumbai conspirators.
But the government complains that India has not shared evidence from its investigation of the attack, underlining the mistrust hampering US efforts to avert a deeper crisis between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Pakistani authorities had detained Zarrar Shah, a second key suspect in the Mumbai plot.
Indian news reports citing intelligence officials identified Shah as Lashkar's communications chief and said he worked out ways for the group's leaders in Pakistan to stay in touch with the 10 terrorists during the three-day siege in Mumbai.
The New York Times has reported that the attackers and their handlers used Internet phone services to make it harder for investigators to trace their calls.
Gilani also confirmed that Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, another alleged plotter identified by India, was detained during a raid Sunday in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir.
The Pakistani Prime Minister said Pakistan was moving against terrorists based only on information released by Indian authorities through the media.
"That is a good message to our neighbours and the rest of the world that Pakistan is a responsible nation," Gilani said. "We want to defuse the situation."
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US officials have told Pakistan that it must go beyond mere arrests and prevent any repeat of the Mumbai attack, whose victims included six Americans. India released information on Tuesday purporting to show that all 10 terrorists in Mumbai were from Pakistan.
Washington wants the South Asian rivals to resume the peace process so Pakistan can focus on fighting Taliban and al-Qaeda militants along the Afghan frontier.
But dismantling Lashkar will be politically dangerous for Pakistan's leaders because of the group's leading role in the dispute with India over Kashmir.
Pakistan's military and intelligence services are widely believed to have helped create Lashkar as a proxy fighting force in India's part of Kashmir, where Muslim separatists have engaged in a long insurgency.
While Pakistan's young civilian government has voiced a strong stance against Islamic extremism and reached out to India, there are doubts that the military, which has ruled for about half the country's 61-year history, will turn decisively against its unofficial allies.
Jamaat-ud-Dawa denies any link to Lashkar. But Washington says it is a mere alias for a terror group that has developed ties to al-Qaeda. Some analysts suspect the charity may supply recruits for terrorist operations.
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