Pakistan has detained Mumbai attack mastermind and Jammat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed and four others under an Anti-Terrorism Act, a day after Trump administration threatened to put Pakistan in the immigration ban list of countries whose citizens are of threat to America.
JuD is the face of banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror outfit that carried out terror attacks in India, including the Mumbai terror strike of November 26, 2008 masterminded by Saeed. In 2012, the US announced a bounty of $10 million on Hafiz Saeed for his role in the attack that killed six American citizens among others.
The Times of India quoted an anonymous Pakistan defence ministry official as saying: “Trump is taking hard decisions against Muslim countries, there is open talk of actions against Pakistan also. So yes, this was a consideration,“ he said. JuD member Nadeem, too, said, “This government has buckled under pressure.“
Advertisement
The Pakistan has described the action as a measure to adhere to the UN sanction. Three days ago, Punjab's Ministry of Interior had included names of Saeed and four others -- Abdullah Ubaid, Zafar Iqbal, Abdur Rehman Abid and Qazi Kashif Niaz -- in the Watch List as per UNSC 1267 Sanctions and ordered their preventive detention.
Saeed was in Lahore when police descended there to implement the order of detention issued by Punjab Province's Interior Ministry yesterday in pursuance to a directive from the Federal Interior Ministry on January 27, JuD activists and Pakistani media said.
He "is at Masjid-e-Qudsia Chauburji and a heavy contingent of police has surrounded the JuD headquarters," JuD official Ahmed Nadeem, who was present at the premises of the outfit, told PTI by phone.
Advertisement
"The commanding police officer told us that he has with him the house arrest order of the JuD chief issued by the Punjab Home Department," Nadeem said. Saeed's residence has been declared sub-jail, he said.
National flags were hoisted at the JuD offices in Lahore, instead of party flags, on the directives of provincial home department, local media reports said.
The provincial authorities have also started to remove the banners of JuD from the roads of Lahore, the reports said.
