Saeed was booked by the Pakistani authorities for allegedly inciting people to wage 'jihad' (holy war) against 'infidels'.
India on Friday summoned a senior diplomat of the Pakistani high commission on the 13th anniversary of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, and pressed for an expeditious trial in the case, saying the families of 166 victims from 15 countries are still awaiting closure.
The attack in Lahore, where a group of armed gunmen took policemen at a training academy hostage, bears resemblance to the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistan Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik said on Monday.
The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Gujranwala issued the warrant during a hearing in a terror financing case instituted by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab police against some members of the JeM.
Funds are instrumental in the success of a terrorist operation and India's war against terror will not be complete unless it acts upon this crucial aspect.
The United Nations has dedicated a solidarity tree in remembrance of victims of terrorism with a solemn ceremony that also honoured victims of the 2008 Mumbai attack, on the eve of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the world organisation.
"There is an alert to intensify security in and around the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited refineries following specific information about a possible terror attack," a police officer involved in the exercise told PTI on condition of anonymity.
Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, blamed for the Mumbai terror attacks, has demanded that the Pakistan government should announce a date for parting ways with the United States and abandoning its war on terrorism.
Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist in the Mumbai terror attack who was held guilty on Monday, is a school dropout who saw Jihad as the purpose of his life.Kasab, the face of the devastating terror siege on Mumbai in which 166 persons were killed, took part in the bloodiest episode of the 60-hour siege that started on the night of November 26, 2008.
Pakistan may have framed charges against seven Lashkar-e-Tayiba members for their involvement in the Mumbai attacks, but what remains a fact is that certain key personnel of the outfit have been left scot-free. Apart from this what is even more shocking is that the jihad factories continue to crop up without any problem across the border.
The agency told the court that he is the "mastermind" and the handler of the arrested suspects.
"We have asked the Pakistani government to address those allegations in the past," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told media persons when asked about the alleged involvement of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) in the Mumbai terrorist attacks.
India on Tuesday said Pakistan should do more in containing militancy as well as dismantling terror infrastructure in that country. "Frankly we have not seen enough action on either, though we acknowledge that the civilian government in Islamabad had apprehended seven persons in connection with the Mumbai terror attacks," Shashi Tharoor, minister of state for external affairs, said in New York.
Maharashtra cabinet on Thursday passed a resolution urging the central government to confer 'Bharat Ratna', the country's highest civilian award, on legendary industrialist late Ratan Tata.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Saturday night described the blast in Pune as a 'significant terrorist incident', since the Mumbai terror attack 14 months ago, and said all information pointed to a plot to trigger the explosion in a place frequented by foreigners and Indians. "This is a sad event. Significant terrorist incident after 14 months", Chidambaram told mediapersons.
Under pressure from India and the United States to act against Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the mastermind of Mumbai terror attack, the Pakistani police today registered cases against him and one of his close aides Abu Jandal under the Anti-Terrorism Act.
Police are examining the past records of the arrested men in the sarpanch Santosh Deshmukh murder case and a related case of extortion to decide if the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) should be invoked, sources said on Thursday. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said he had requested senior lawyer Ujjwal Nikam to appear as a special prosecutor in the murder case. The Crime Investigation Department (CID) has sought old case papers and chargesheets against the arrested men. Deshmukh, the sarpanch of Massajog village in Beed, was abducted and brutally killed on December 9, allegedly for opposing an extortion bid by some persons who had demanded money from a windmill company. Beed Police has put up posters seeking information about whereabouts of three wanted accused in the murder case. CM Fadnavis said he spoke to BJP MLA from Beed, Suresh Dhas who demanded that Nikam be appointed as special public prosecutor in the case. Nikam was a special public prosecutor in several high-profile cases, including the 26/11 terror attacks and 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts. Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar claimed that "smaller fish" could be killed in fake encounters to save the "big fish" involved in the Deshmukh murder and extortion cases. Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra legislative council Ambadas Danve said the trial in the case should be conducted outside Beed district. NCP leader Dhananjay Munde, who has come under fire after the alleged involvement of his aide Karad in the extortion matter came to light, said those who murdered Santosh Deshmukh should be tried in a fast-track court and "hanged till death." The government on Wednesday set up a 10-member SIT to probe the case, headed by Deputy Inspector General -CID Basavraj Teli.
The Maharashtra Assembly elections are taking place today, with the ruling BJP-led Mahayuti alliance seeking to retain power and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) hoping for a comeback. The campaign saw prominent leaders like Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Rahul Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra crisscrossing the state to garner votes. The Mahayuti is banking on popular schemes while the MVA focuses on issues like caste-based census and social justice. The elections have also seen a significant rise in the number of candidates and voters.
Samraz, the wife of Mumbai attacks co-accused Tahawwur Rana, said on Tuesday that India was her second home and there was no reason her husband would have planned to attack that country.
An investigating officer told rediff.com that Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorists Sabahuddin and Fahim Ansari -- whose names are likely to figure in the 26/11 attack chargesheet -- confessed before interrogators in Mumbai that the Rampur attack was aimed at distracting security agencies to enable the smuggling of arms into Mumbai for the big attack.
Professor Marvin Weinbaum, Scholar-in-Residence at the Middle East Institute, who has served in several US administrations as an expert on South Asia, particularly in the State Department's Policy Planning Bureau and Bureau of Intelligence and Research, told Congress on Thursday that the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, responsible for the horrific 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, could surpass or replace Al Qaeda as the number one terror network worldwide.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday began a key meeting in Tehran, amid clear indications that terrorism will be the prime focus of the Indian side.
The proof of a Pakistan link to the Mumbai terror attack became stronger on Monday, with the Mumbai police saying that all the ten terrorists who had attacked the city were from Pakistan. The ATS says that three terrorists were from Multan, three from Okara, one each from Faizabad, Sialkot and Ismail Dera Islam. These men were handpicked by the Lashkar-e-Tayiba from different parts of Pakistan to carry out the attack.
This is the second time that Rotawan, now 23 years old, has approached the court.
Twenty-one-year-old Iman, when captured from Chowpatty after the Wednesday's audacious attack, told interrogators that he had started his career as a petty thief in Lahore, where he was staying with his brother after dropping out from school in 2000.
Nirupama Rao, who took over as the foreign secretary on August 1, has had a variety of issues on her platter -- the reported incursions by China along the border, the attack near the Indian embassy in Kabul, Pakistan dilly-dallying on prosecuting Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed and the mounting political pressure over the rehabilitation of displaced Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Saeed and the four men added to the fourth schedule of the ATA were also placed under house arrest on January 30 in Lahore amid an angry uproar from his party and political allies.
Indicted for conspiracy in the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistani Canadian citizen Tahawwaur Rana might get financial assistance from 'dangerous terrorist organisations' to flee the country if released on bond, federal prosecutors seeking his detention have argued. With Rana being named as a conspirator, he also faces a harsher jail sentence of life imprisonment in the new charge-sheet filed against him, they said.
The Pakistan government on Monday renewed its offer of full cooperation with India, including intelligence-sharing and setting up of joint investigative commission to probe the Mumbai attacks
The NIA arrested the three during in-chamber proceedings before Special Judge Rakesh Syal and sought 15-day custodial interrogation.
Mumbai Police found itself in an embarrassing situation when it again sought the remand of Indian Mujahideen (IM) terrorists, who are suspects in serial blasts in the country, in connection with the 26/11 probe on terror strikes only to withdraw the plea after admitting it was an error. The Mumbai police retracted since it had previously made a remand application on December 15 last to investigate if the IM terrorists had any links with those behind the Mumbai terror attacks.
The US believes Lashkar-e-Tayiba, the Pakistan-based terrorist organisation, responsible for the horrific Mumbai terror attacks on 26/11 and several other terrorist acts in India, could soon replace Al Qaeda as the number one worldwide terrorist threat or at the very least compete with Osama bin Laden's global Terror Inc.
Anti-India elements in Pakistan are planning to attack Indian computer networks, intelligence agencies have warned. Pakistani hackers are trying out a dry run by hacking popular websites registered there, home ministry sources said on Tuesday. "Every time the relations between the two countries dampen, Pakistanis start attacking Indian computer networks and this has increased after the Mumbai terror attacks," a home ministry source said.
The Union home ministry believes the newly-formed National Investigation Agency will have to reinvestigate the 26/11 case if the David Headley-Tahawwur Rana probe produces unexpected links with the Mumbai terror attacks. This will be a serious matter and hit the Mumbai police's credibility.
The Mumbai terror attack changed the way India thought. Not only did the attitude of the Indian security agencies change, but it even prompted an NGO to start a full fledged course on counter-terrorism so that every person knows how to handle a terror struck situation.
The special court also directed the ATS to hand over the custody of all the five accused to the NIA and also granted their transit remand to the central investigation agency, said public prosecutor (ATS) Vijay Fargade.
Talking to media persons in New Delhi, Defence Minister A K Antony said, however, India will have to take action against terrorists involved in the Mumbai attacks for the relations between the two countries to be normal.
Terrorism is the biggest curse for the society, he said, adding that if there is any country which bore the maximum brunt of terrorism, it is India.
"Our own investigations into Mumbai (attacks) have progressed. We have received some information of an interim nature on Indian investigations. We are prepared to take this process forward with a view to uncovering the full facts, thus ensuring that the perpetrators of this heinous crime, whosoever they may be, are brought to justice," Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said
Pakistan today asked India to share information and evidence on the Mumbai terrorist attacks, saying its probe into the incident could not proceed unless there is "sustained and pragmatic cooperation" between the two countries.
