Bowing to international pressure yesterday Pakistan moved to close an Islamic charity led by the founder of the militant group blamed for last month's Mumbai attacks.

The Interior Ministry ordered provincial authorities to shut down the offices of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) a day after the UN Security Council, at India's request, declared it a front for terrorists.

Police also placed under house arrest Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the leader of JuD and founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the banned militant group that US and Indian officials say carried out the Mumbai attacks.

Mr Saeed and three colleagues were placed on the UN terrorist list. The moves came as India and the US stepped up pressure on Pakistan to crack down on individuals and groups who launch terrorist attacks from its territory.

Indian leaders made their demands in a parliamentary debate in Delhi while John Negroponte, the US Deputy Secretary of State, met Pakistani leaders in Islamabad. Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, told Parliament: “We have to galvanise the international community to deal with the epicentre of terrorism, which is located in Pakistan.

“We have noted the reported steps taken by Pakistan but clearly much more needs to be done,” he said, adding that “the infrastructure of terrorism” in Pakistan must be dismantled.

Pranab Mukherjee, the Indian Foreign Minister, told Parliament earlier that India had asked Pakistan to extradite 40 suspects in terrorist attacks and other crimes. These were India's first official responses to Pakistan's crackdown on militants, which began on Sunday with a raid on a camp used by LeT in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

Pakistani officials say that they have arrested about 20 militants, including Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the LeT operations chief and the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai attacks.

However, Pakistan says that it wants proof of their role in Mumbai and has ruled out handing them to India, pledging to try them on its own territory. India has not specified how it will respond if the 40 suspects are not handed over, but it has said that it is not considering military action.

After LeT militants attacked the Indian Parliament in 2001 India and Pakistan massed troops on their common border and almost went to war for the fourth time since independence in 1947. Pakistan has cautioned that if India reacts the same way this time it will pull back its troops fighting al-Qaeda and Taleban militants near the Afghan border, jeopardising US and Nato forces in Afghanistan.

Mr Negroponte met Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani President, and other leaders to try to prevent that outcome, while pressing them to take stronger action against militants.

Yousaf Raza Gilani, the Pakistani Prime Minister, announced after the meetings that his Government would comply with the UN decision to put JuD on its terrorist list. He also said that his Government was investigating links between JuD and LeT. “The two groups have the same leadership,” he said in the first public acknowledgement of such a link by any Pakistani leader.

Analysts say that JuD is a front for LeT, which was founded in 1989 with the help of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency as a deniable proxy to fight Indian rule in Kashmir.

Mr Saeed, however, denied any involvement in the Mumbai attacks and challenged Indian and US officials to produce evidence against his charity. “We will challange the decision in an international court of justice,” he said. “We do not beg, we demand justice.”

Times Recommends

• Michael Jackson: Not the final chapter
• Indian Army spends10m rupees on golf buggies
• Brüno toned down for 15 rating