Ministry sends terrorist list to all provinces

KARACHI: The Interior Ministry has provided a list of wanted al Qaeda and Taliban members with names and addresses to all provinces with orders to arrest them and seize their property, assets and businesses.

Officials said that the United Nations had provided the list and requested Pakistan to take action. The list has hundreds of names with many of them suspected al Qaeda members from Europe, Africa and the Middle East as well. Many of the Taliban leaders belong to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Officials have said that a majority of the Pakistanis wanted men belong to Peshawar and only two per cent of the names are from the other provinces.

Some of the Taliban members are from Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa but many of them have already been killed. The list mentions some names more than five times as many people are operating in different regions under different names and different bank accounts and businesses. According to sources, only one person is mentioned from Sindh and he actually belongs to Afghanistan. There are orders to cancel their arms licences as well. The list will go to law-enforcement agencies and district administrations.

Published in the Express Tribune, May 19th, 2010.