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LAHORE, Pakistan, Jan 13 (AFP) - Almost 900 alleged religious militants have been rounded up across Pakistan under a crackdown announced by President Pervez Musharraf, police said Sunday.

Police said hundreds of religious activists were taken into custody Sunday as the sweep continued for a second day, mainly in the eastern province of Punjab bordering India.

Musharraf banned five Islamic militant groups in a landmark speech to the nation on Saturday, as his country stands at the brink of war with nuclear neighbour India over its support for Islamic rebels in the disputed Himalayan state of Kashmir.

Two of the banned groups -- the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad -- are among the most hardline Islamic militant groups fighting against Indian rule in Kashmir.

New Delhi accuses them of orchestrating a surprise attack on the Indian parliament last month which left 14 people dead and sparked a massive troop buildup on both sides of the Indo-Pakistan border.

The other three banned groups include two sectarian extremist outfits and a radical Islamic party opposed to Pakistan's alignment with the US-led war against Afghanistan's Taliban militia and terror suspect Osama bin Laden.

Officials in Punjab, southern Sindh and western Baluchistan provinces said dozens of offices run by the banned groups had been sealed during overnight raids, while police were keeping a close eye on mosques and other likely centres of unrest.

Police in the Punjab capital Lahore said some 530 people had been taken into custody in the province since Saturday. Another 250 had been detained in Sindh and 100 in Baluchistan, officials said.

"More than 200 offices of the banned parties have been sealed and records taken into custody," Punjab Home Secretary Ejaz Shah told AFP.

Despite the official arrest figures, Shabbir Naqvi, the Lahore president of the banned Shiite political party Tehreek-i-Jafria Pakistan, put the number of his members detained at 900.

The fundamentalist Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), which is not on the list of banned parties, claimed police had also rounded up some of its workers and supporters.

"The actual figure is not available. We are collecting the data but according to initial reports more than two dozen people have been detained in Lahore alone," acting JI head Munawwar Hussain said.

The Punjab government on Sunday also outlawed the publication of extremist literature, the display of banners, graffiti and collecting donations for extremist causes.

It has also forbidden the use of loudspeakers by the banned groups to protest the government's action.

Pakistani authorities had already arrested the leaders of Jaish-i-Mohammad and Lashkar-i-Taiba, who deny any involvement in the December 13 parliament attack, and have also frozen their accounts.

Most of the Pakistan-based offices of the two groups had been closed and shifted to Pakistani-controlled Kashmir earlier this month.

Officials in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, a semi-autonomous zone with its own constitution and parliament, said they fully supported Musharraf's stance but there were no reports of arrests in the state.

New Delhi welcomed Musharraf's speech but called for tough action to end all "cross-border terrorism" in Kashmir, a Muslim-majority state which has been divided between the two countries since 1947 and remains claimed by both.

The Indian government has demanded the extradition of 20 Pakistan-based militants as well as the closure of training camps and arms supply routes.

Musharraf on Saturday vowed to root out religious extremists but said there was no way he would hand over Pakistani citizens to India. 

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