[Dawn] Pakistan's political heartland has ordered a crackdown on militants after a series of devastating attacks and accusations of links to banned groups, officials said Monday.Nothing to get excited about. These "crackdowns" usually last about two weeks. The Lahore High Court then lets everybody go for lack of evidence.
New Delhi and Washington have long demanded that Pakistan root out extremist militant groups that use its soil to launch attacks across the country, as well as in neighbouring Afghanistan and India.
New Delhi and Washington will still be demanding the same thing when the Last Trumpet parps.
But the details and scope of the apparent crackdown - which comes just days before Pakistan is due to host India's Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna for talks in Islamabad - were unclear.
Pakistain is usually pretty hazy when it comes to details. They not too distinct when it comes to the Big Picture, either.
"The government has ordered a policy of zero tolerance against all these groups. There are at least 2,000 to 2,200 activists of banned outfits being closely monitored in Punjab," police official Akram Naeem Bharoka told AFP.
"Oh, they're being monitored, are they?"
"Oh, yasss! Closely monitored!"
"We have very clear instructions from the government that no outlawed organisation should be allowed to continue their activities in any part of the province," Bharoka said.
"Certainly not! They're outlawed, after all."
Asked how many people had been arrested and offices targeted, the senior official in Punjab police said only that figures were being compiled.
"It's a lot, though."
Police confirmed raids and arrests of militants from extremist Sunni Muslim group Sipah-e-Sihaba Pakistan (SSP) and Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a charity seen as a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba group India blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks. "We have arrested at least eight people belonging to different banned organisations," Lahore city police chief Aslam Tareen told AFP. "These organisations have been involved in distributing hate material and promoting sectarianism," he said. The government ordered police to curb the activities of these groups, he added.