by Aamir Latif
KARACHI, Pakistan
Pakistan has shut down the operations of an international children’s aid agency Save The Children across the country for being involved in “anti-Pakistan activities”, officials said on Thursday.
A notice issued by the Interior Ministry was delivered to the head office of the NGO in Islamabad asking the foreign workers to leave the country within 15 days, and relieve the local staff.
The Interior Ministry official also sealed the NGO’s head office soon after delivering the notice which did not elaborate on the anti-state activities in which the NGO has allegedly been involved.
A senior interior ministry official wishing not to be named told Anadolu Agency that the NGO had been on a watch list for its involvement in a fake CIA-backed anti-polio campaign, launched by Shakil Afridi, to track down the al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, in the northwestern garrison city of Abbotabad in 2011. Bin Laden was killed in a U.S. Navy Seals operation in May 2011.
According to the official, the NGO had paid 1.3 million rupees ($13,000) to Afridi, who is currently serving a 33-year prison term for having links with banned militant groups.
The campaign later led to a de facto Taliban ban on anti-polio vaccinations in the country, which is one of three countries in the world where polio is endemic.
According to local English daily, The News, an official report prepared jointly by Pakistan civil and military intelligence had blamed a former Save the Children director for introducing Afridi to the Americans.
