A gang linked to Daniel Pearl's murder and three other deadly terror attacks last year is among three more militant groups facing prohibition in Pakistan under a new anti-extremist drive, officials said.
"We have decided to ban a few more groups and a decision in this regard will be announced in a few days," Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat Wednesday told AFP, without naming the groups.
After President Pervez Musharraf's January 2002 ban on five extremist organisations failed to stop four of them regrouping under new names, Pakistan has launched a fresh bid to stymie the groups.
A Shiite Muslim party, a group of rebels fighting Indian rule in Kashmir and a violent Sunni extremist organisation were outlawed last Saturday for ignoring last year's bans and regrouping. The government invoked a 1997 Anti-Terrorist Act which forbids the reemergence of banned organisations.
Senior security officials identified the other targetted groups as Jamaat-ul Furqan, Hizbul Tehreer and Jamaat-ul Ansar.
Jamaat-ul Furqan, meaning Organisation of the Faithful, is a breakaway splinter group of Jaish-e-Mohammad, one of the fiercest anti-India guerrilla groups fighting in Kashmir.
Police have linked it to four fatal terror attacks in 2002, including the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl, a suicide bombing of an Islamabad church packed with diplomats, a grenade attack on a Christian hospital chapel and the storming of a Christian school for missionaries' children.
A dissident guerrilla commander of Jaish, Abdul Jabbar, formed Jamaat-ul Furqan. It was Jabbar's driver, Fazal Karim, who led police to Pearl's shallow grave in southern city Karachi in May 2002, five months after he was kidnapped.
Police said Jabbar's group trained suicide attackers and plotted the attacks to avenge Musharraf's crackdown on militants and the US-led ouster of the Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Jaish's leader Masood Azhar formed a new group named Khudamul Islam. It was among those banned last Saturday. Security agencies are seeking to arrest Azhar, saying he is wanted for flaunting the January 2002 ban on his group.
"Masood Azhar was trying to reorganise Jaish under a different name but with the same objectives as those of Jaish and with the same office-bearers," a senior intelligence officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Hizbul Tehreer is a London-based group which condemns Western democratic values and has been operating branches in Pakistan in recent years, a police intelligence official said.
Jamaat-ul Ansar has been involved in fighting Indian forces in Kashmir.
Its leader Fazlur Rehman Khalil was formerly associated with Harkatul Mujahedin, a group which was banned by United States after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
Instead of arresting the groups' followers authorities have chosen to shut down their offices and demand cash pledges as security guarantees instead.
"We are not going for the arrest of members of these banned groups," Hayat said.
"We are closing down their offices to deny them a forum. We are seeking guarantees from them that they do not indulge in such activities in the future.... If they disobey the government ban again they will be punished."
Around 150 offices have been sealed since Saturday, the minister added.
Nearly 600 activists had been ordered to pledge up to 100,000 rupees (1,725 dollars) as security guarantees, a police intelligence officer said.
Musharraf on Saturday banned Islami Tehreek, the reformed Shiite militant group Tehreek-i-Jafria; Khudamul Islam; and Millat-e-Islami, the renamed violent Sunni outfit Sipah-e-Sahaba whose leader Azam Tariq was assassinated in Islamabad last month.