Few people attending religious preaching in Pakistan after crackdown

Lahore, Dec.15 (ANI): The crack down against the terror outfits in Pakistan may not have impressed India, but people in Pakistan are certainly facing the heat.

Religious preaching by the radical leaders of the country is being boycotted by the general public.

On a normal Friday afternoon, people used to throng the roads and streets near the Qadssiya mosque,where leader of the Jamaat-ud-dawa, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed preached. Typically eight thousand people used to visit the mosque.

But scene near the mosque has changed drastically after Saeed was put under house arrest by the Pakistani authorities. Roads are unusually silent and few people are turning up for the religious talks.

"The government has created a panic,"a mosque administrator Mohammad Nawaz said.

"Our leader has been arrested so, not a lot of people have come today.People are not certain what will happen next," he added.Under intense pressure to show some resolve against the homegrown terrorism, the Pakistani government claims to have arrested Lashkar officials suspected of masterminding the Mumbai attacks.

Authorities claim to have shut-down dozens of Jamaat-ud-dawa offices and detaining many of the group members.

Jamaat-ud-dawa is the charity front of the terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba.(ANI)