Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said that at least 95 banned outfits were fully functioning in the country's Punjab province.
According to Dawn News, during the briefing on the status of implementation of the National Action Plan to counter terrorism and extremism, Chaudhry Nisar said that law-enforcement agencies were proactively monitoring madressahs to check the spread of terrorist ideology in the country.
The report quoted a government critic as saying that despite repeated reminders by the media about the growing militant presence in the province, the Shahbaz Sharif-led Punjab government had failed to check the spread of such outfits and instead preferred to cohabitate with them.
Unnamed officials who were at the meeting reportedly revealed that most of these groups were concentrated in the southern districts of the province.
Nisar said that some 1,400 people have been booked in the province after initiation of the National Action Plan.
Referring to the increase in the number of proscribed organisations, he said this was quite a large jump, but the scope and types of these groups remained to be seen, the report added.