Banning groups – Newspaper – DAWN.COM

THE Punjab government has released a list of ‘banned outfits’, warning the public that giving money to these groups is a crime punishable under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997. Numbering some 84 groups, the list mirrors a similar inventory of supposedly proscribed outfits maintained by Nacta.

While these organisations — ranging from religiously inclined and sectarian armed groups to ethno-nationalist separatists — are supposed to be out of commission, in many cases this is not true, and they operate with relative impunity.

The rationale behind the Punjab administration’s move seems to be the fact that as many people give zakat and other donations during the ongoing month of Ramazan, care should be taken so that people’s charity does not end up in the coffers of terrorists. While this is a noble aim, the bigger question is why such a large list of terrorist outfits still exists, and why these groups have not been permanently disabled.

As Pakistan faces multiple terrorist threats, the state’s approach of banning groups, and then letting them operate with new monikers, must be revisited if we are sincere in our counterterrorism endeavours. For example, some groups on the list have gone through several name changes since the Musharraf era: their names change, but their leaders, operatives and ideologies remain the same.

Moreover, while the state has banned sectarian groups, they still freely organise and hold massive rallies in Pakistan’s cities. Similarly, while those peacefully struggling for their rights get the rough end of the stick from the state, violent elements — such as the ladies and gentlemen of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid — are treated with kid gloves, with the state ‘negotiating’ with those who have threatened it on multiple occasions. Until this glaring disconnect is addressed, Pakistan can ban a thousand groups, but militant violence will not come down.

If the state has banned a group on paper, this means it has sufficient evidence of wrongdoing against it. The logical corollary should mean cases against the leaders and financiers of such violent groups, so that they are prosecuted and jailed. Though some jihadist leaders have been prosecuted, many others remain free. The battle against violent extremism will be a long and hard one, and will require long-term efforts such as promoting genuine moderation in society, as well as deradicalisation campaigns.

But the first steps of this long struggle must be defeating terrorist groups in the field, and ensuring that banned groups are actually banned. If groups are able to re-emerge under new names and continue their destructive activities, all efforts to fight terrorism will fail despite the loss of tens of thousands of precious civilian and security personnel’s lives.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2025