In a major breakthrough, Mumbai terror attack mastermind and Jamat ud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed has finally been arrested. This news comes as a massive victory, especially for Modi government diplomacy.
The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab Police (Pakistan’s) detained Hafiz Saeed from Lahore when he was on his way to Gujranwala. It has been learnt that Hafiz Saeed was reportedly sent on judicial remand. If reports doing the rounds are to be believed, Hafiz Saeed said he is ready to challenge cases against him in the court.
The arrest just came a day after Pakistan opened its airspace and before Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s maiden trip to the White House to help repair its kinship with the United States.
The Imran Khan-led government has been under a tremendous amount of pressure from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to act against infamous terror outfits and terrorists operating out of Pakistan and with no option left, Pakistan had arrested Hafiz Saeed.
Hafiz Saeed was previously booked along with ’12 accomplices’ for terror funding. As of now, he is facing as many as 23 terror-related cases in Pakistan. Saeed was, however, granted bail as the government said they could not attach the necessary evidence before the court.
Previously, Pakistan counter-terrorism department said it had registered around 23 cases against terror outfit Hafiz Saeed and 23 others for using five trusts to “raise and increase funds for terrorism financing”.
Word has it that the funds collected by Hafiz Saeed and his accomplices by means of trusts were used to finance the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which executed terror strikes including the 2008 Mumbai attack in India.
In the process, more than 165 people died in Mumbai terror attacks when 10 Pakistani gunmen immediately opened fire at multiple locations in the city.
Stern action against Hafiz Saeed followed big pressure from the FATF, which placed Pakistan on its “grey list” of countries over terrorism financing.
Hafiz Saeed is a UN-designated a global terrorist and is the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba. The US announced a bounty of $10 million for attaching evidence leading to his conviction.