ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s prime minister on Tuesday ordered all international aid agencies to renew their registration within three months amid a crackdown on charity workers and activists whom authorities accuse of breaking unspecified laws.

Last week authorities said they would tighten oversight of local and international aid groups. Officials padlocked the offices of international aid organization Save the Children but did not explain why.

“All INGOs will complete the process of their fresh registration with the Government of Pakistan within three months,” said a government statement, referring to international non-governmental organizations.

Save the Children has operated in Pakistan, a nation of 190 million people plagued by poverty and militancy, for more than 30 years. But it has had strained relations with the government since 2011, when a Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, was recruited to help the CIA hunt down Osama Bin Laden.

The charity says it had no links to Afridi beyond his attendance at some brief training courses the charity ran for tens of thousands of health workers.

Last week’s decision to shut down Save the Children was suspended two days later after international donors, including the US government, raised concerns.

Pakistan executes seven prisoners: Officials

Pakistan Tuesday hanged seven prisoners, bringing the total number put to death since executions resumed last December to 160, officials said.

Seven executions took place in several cities in the central province of Punjab including Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Dera Ghazi Khan, Sialkot and Bahawalpur.

All of those executed had been convicted of murder.

Executions in Pakistan resumed in December, ending a six-year moratorium, after Taleban militants gunned down 154 people, most of them children, at a school in the restive northwest.

Hangings were initially reinstated only for those convicted of terrorism offenses, but in March they were extended to all capital offenses.

The European Union, the United Nations and human rights campaigners have all urged Pakistan to reinstate the moratorium.

Amnesty International estimates that Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on death row, most of whom have exhausted their appeals.