NEW DELHI: Armed with an amended Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, the government has, in one stroke, formally banned over 100 outfits - linked to al-Qaida - from across the globe by declaring them "terrorist organizations" in India.

Though India had been keeping tabs on these outfits in accordance with the relevant United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, a formal decision to put these 100-odd entities - along with 33 other terror organizations - in the list of banned organisations is seen as a move "to avoid any legal ambiguity" in case Indian cops lay their hands on anyone associated with these bodies.

These outfits include all the big Islamic terror outfits like Jemaah Islamiyah (Bali bombing fame) of Indonesia, Islamic Jihad Group of Libya, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, International Islamic Relief Organization of Philippines and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan among others.

The ministry of home affairs has put these entities together (at entry number 33) in its `revised' list of banned outfits as "Organisations listed in the Schedule to the UN Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism (Implementation of Security Council Resolutions) Order, 2007".

"The number of these outfits will increase or decrease as amended from time to time. We have put them together under one head so that we do not have to revise it (the list) whenever it is amended at the UNSC level," said a senior home ministry official.

The home ministry's revised list of banned outfits - which is to be made public on its official website soon -- also for the first time includes the Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF) as one of the terrorist organizations under the UAP Act. Though names of three pro-Khalistan terror outfits - Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), Khalistan Comando Force (KCF) and International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) -- have been on the list for long, the move to include KZF in the revised list is seen in the light of increased activities of the outfit in India in the past couple of years.

"The KZF was put on the list of banned outfits just before the Indo-Pak foreign secretary-level talks in February," said the official. During the talks on February 26, India had handed over three dossiers to Pakistan, one of which had the names of seven Khalistani terrorists including the KZF commander Ranjit Singh Neeta.

The outfit was also in the news recently following the arrest of its terrorist Nirmal Singh alias Nimma in Raipur (Chhattisgarh) early this month. Nimma was given the task by the ISI to attack Adampur Air Force station in Punjab and to recruit youths from villages along the Indo-Pakistan border in the state.

Officials believe that the revised list will help the cops in pursuing cases against the terrorists belonging to these organizations in courts more effectively.

Prominent in the list of banned outfits in India include: Lashkar-e-Taiba; Jaish-e-Mohammad; Tahrik-e-Furqan; Al Badr; Jamiat-ul-Mujahidden; Al-Qaida; Harkat-ul-Mujahideen; Harkat-ul-Ansar; Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami; Hizb-ul-Mujahideen; Al-Umar-Mujahideen; Jammu and Kashmir Islamic Front; ULFA; NDFB; LTTE, SIMI, Deendar Anjuman; Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist-People's War); Maoist Communist Centre; and CPI (Maoist).

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