Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed's release has raised questions about the efficacy of Pakistan's campaign against terror and the adequacy of the country's legal framework for dealing with militant leaders, the Pakistani media said on Thursday.
Pakistan on Thursday said the government of its Punjab province will file an appeal against the Lahore High Court order releasing banned Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who was placed under house arrest in December last year, in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks.
Special public prosecutor in the 26/11-terror attacks case, Ujjwal Nikam, on Friday demanded that the Pakistani court should conduct an open trial in the case, slated to begin there on Saturday.
The release of Jamaat -ud-Dawaa chief Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed is probably one of the worst thing that could have happened to India. Although the Lashkar-e-Tayiba continued to operate despite its chief being detained, Saeed's release will only motivate more youth to take up jihad, sources in the Intelligence Bureau told rediff.com.
"We are unhappy," said Home Minister P Chidambaram, reacting to Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Mohd Saeed's release by a court in Pakistan.
"If 5,000 of these folk (some have estimated the strength of the LeT upwards of 150,000) decide to come out tomorrow in defense, there would be no police -- nowhere in sight. They could take over the city."
Former Inter-Services Intelligence chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha Pasha knew of Osama bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan and LeT founder Hafiz Saeed was in regular contact with the slain Al Qaeda chief, a media report said on Wednesday.
Mahmood Ali Durrani, who was sacked as the Pakistan's National Security Advisor after he acknowledged Ajmal Kasab's Pakistani nationality, has insisted that Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed had no role in the 26/11 terror strike and has asked New Delhi not to "push" Islamabad.
Even as Pakistan continues to claim that India has not provided enough evidence in the Mumbai terror attack case, Interpol has suggested otherwise by issuing an arrest warrant against Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed.
The Pakistan government needs to examine the evidence provided by India, on the basis of which Interpol issued a Red Corner Notice against Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said.He reiterated that Pakistan will never allow anyone to use its territory "against India or anyone else".
Pakistan needs to examine the evidence provided by India on the basis of which Interpol issued a Red Corner Notice against Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said.
Pakistani authorities have detained more than 60 leaders of the outlawed Jamaat-ud-Dawah though no evidence linking them to the Mumbai attacks has been found so far, the interior ministry said on Friday. Intelligence and security agencies have detained the Jamaat leaders, including its chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, as part of the ongoing crackdown on the group designated as a terrorist outfit by the United Nations Security Council. Nothing incriminating has been found.
External affairs Minister SM Krishna has taken on Lashkar-e-Tayiba founder and Jama'at-Ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed saying India believes Saeed is the "brain" behind the Mumbai attacks of November 2008, telling Pakistan's government that if it wants to prove its seriousness on tackling terror, it must tackle Saeed.
Jamaat-ud_Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, designated as a terrorist by the United Nations Security Council in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, and other militant leaders detained by Pakistani authorities cannot be tried in the absence of solid evidence against them, Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said on Wednesday. The government had recently launched a crackdown against militant groups, including the JuD.
Pakistan has not received any "solid evidence" against outlawed Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed from India so far, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Friday, as New Delhi presented a fresh dossier on the26/11 carnage to Islamabad.
Stepping up operations against terror groups, Pakistani security forces on Friday sealed more offices of the Lashker-e-Taiba's front organisation Jamaat-ud-Dawah across the country and reportedly rounded up dozens of its activists.The clampdown, which started after sundown on Thursday with the group's founder Hafiz Mohammed Saeed being put under house arrest, continued today with JuD offices locked up in other parts of the country.
Notwithstanding the dossiers of information handed over by India, Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence believes that there is nothing to implicate Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, a key accused in the Mumbai terror attack case, a media report said in Islamabad on Wednesday, quoting an ISI official.Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Saeed, who was also the founder of terror outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba, was let off in July by a Pakistani court.
On Wednesday, a search for Top 10 criminals in India, yielded an image of PM Modi.
Asserting that Pakistan should be given a 'categorical response', Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh said Saeed's release posed a 'grave threat to India's security'.
