Pakistan's Religious Affairs Minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi has said that Lashkar-e-Taiba had been operating on the pretext of Jamaat-ud-Dawa in Pakistan and the country would have been isolated if it was not banned.

“Pakistan would have been isolated in the world if the group had not been banned and Jamaat-ud-Dawa was banned under pressure from the United Nations," Hamid Saeed Kazmi was quoted by a private TV channel, as saying.

The minister also denied reports of government sending people to Haj on its own expense.

Kazmi clarified that some United Arab Emirates-based philanthropists had deposited money in Pakistan and the returns on it had been used to facilitate people who wanted to perform Haj.