121 people belonging to banned outfits taken into custody: Interior ministry

ISLAMABAD: Interior ministry on Thursday said so far 121 people have been taken into preventive custody during an ongoing action against the proscribed organisations in the country, ARY News reported.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led federal government has recently initiated a crackdown against banned outfits in line with the decisions made during a meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC) in January this year.

“Interior ministry is working closely with the provinces in crackdown against the banned outfits,” the ministry’s spokesperson said.

The spokesman further added that, the provincial governments have took over the control of 182 madaris, 34 schools, five collages, 184 ambulances and eight offices, which were being operated by the proscribed organisations.

Earlier in the day, the Sindh Auqaf department took over the administrative control of 31 schools, 16 madaris and nine hospitals of proscribed organisations.

In a separate action against the banned outfits, yesterday, the Islamabad administration also took over control of mosques and madaris that were being operated by banned organisations in Islamabad.

Sources privy to the matter said, Quba Masjid, Madni Masjid, Ali Asghar Masjid, Madrassah Khalid bin Waleed and Madrassah Zia-ul-Quran were taken into control by the city’s administration.

Meanwhile, new imams and preachers were appointed by the Auqaf Department in the mosques and the madaris.

Maulana Yaseen of Masjid Quba had replaced as a preacher by Maulana Abdul Hafeez, while Maulana Azhar Abbasi was removed as a preacher and replaced with Maulana Umar Farooq.