The government has ordered immediate closure of all offices of the Al-Rasheed Trust (ART) and Al-Akhter Trust (ART) throughout Pakistan after the United Nations Security Council declared them to have links to militant groups. Sources said that the Interior Ministry had directed the four provinces, the chief secretaries of the Northern Areas (NAs) and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), and the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) district administration to close the offices, schools, hospitals and other ongoing projects of Al-Rasheed Trust and Al-Akhter Trust in their respective areas. They have also been asked to detain the staff of the two trusts, impound their vehicles and confiscate equipment from their offices, said the sources.Daily Times has learnt that five offices of these organisations are operating in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. They are also operating medical dispensaries in remote areas of the twin cities. Banks and other financial institutions have been asked to freeze the accounts of the two trusts and report to police if any person attempts transactions involving these accounts. The cyber crimes wing of the FIA has been instructed to hack the websites of these trusts, the sources said.
Brig (r) Javed Iqbal Cheema, director general of the Crisis Management Cell (CMC) of the Interior Ministry, told Daily Times that these sanctions had been imposed under resolution 1267 of the UNSC. He said that the UNSC had banned the Al-Rasheed Trust in 2001 and Al-Akhter Trust in 2005. UN resolution 1267 requires all states to freeze the assets of people and organisations on a list. He said Pakistan was pushing the UNSC to drop the two trusts from the list.
Reuters adds: The government froze Al-Rasheed’s accounts after the September 11 attacks on the United States, but a court in 2003 declared the move illegal. An Al-Rasheed official in the city of Rawalpindi, Maulana Ghiasuddin, criticised the government’s action. “It is cruel. We’ve been doing charity, nothing illegal. Everything is clear and transparent so why this?” he asked. “Even those who sealed our office had no information on why it was being done,” Ghiasuddin said.