New Delhi: Pakistan on Thursday reinstated ban on the 2009 Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed’s outfit Jamat-ud-Dawa and its charity wing Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation; news agency PTI said quoting an interior ministry. The decision to ban the two groups was taken during Imran Khan’s National Security Committee (NSC) meeting held at the Prime Minister's Office.

It was decided during the meeting to accelerate action against proscribed organizations, and that Jamat-ud-Dawa and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation should be notified as proscribed organisations by the Ministry of Interior.

Earlier, the two outfits were kept on the watchlist of the interior ministry.

It should be noted that JuD They were out of the list of banned outfits in October 2018, after a presidential ordinance that prohibited them under a UN resolution had lapsed. According to a petition filed by Saeed, his counsel Raja Rizwan Abbasi and Sohail Warraich told the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday that the ordinance had lapsed and was never extended by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.

The NSC meeting on Thursday, which was chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan, reviewed the National Action Plan against terrorism in detail. Services chiefs and key ministers were in attendance. In the meeting, Khan authorised the military to respond “decisively” to any Indian misadventure.

The meeting was called to discuss the security situation as the country faced worldwide flak for supporting JeM which carried out the deadly attack. The body issued a statement after the meeting saying that the country was "not involved in any way" in the Pulwama "incident", which was "conceived, planned and executed indigenously".

The country's top civilian and military leadership said in the statement that the Pakistan government was "determined to demonstrate" that it is capable of protecting its people.

According to officials, JuD's network includes 300 seminaries and schools, hospitals, a publishing house and ambulance service. The two groups have about 50,000 volunteers and hundreds of other paid workers.

The JuD is believed to be the front organisation for the LeT which is responsible for carrying out the Mumbai attack that killed 166 people. It has been declared as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US in June 2014.

The US Department of the Treasury has designated its chief Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and the US, since 2012, has offered a USD 10 million reward for information that brings Saeed to justice.

(inputs from agencies)