India on Thursday said Mumbai terror attack mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed was an internationally proscribed terrorist and needed to be brought to justice soon.
“Our view on Hafiz Saeed is very well-known. He is an internationally proscribed terrorist who is engaged in numerous terror acts of terrorism not just at India but also at India’s neighbour… and he needs to be brought to justice as soon as possible,” ministry of external affairs (MEA) spokesperson Vikas Swarup said while addressing the media in New Delhi.
On February 3, Pakistan’s interior ministry included the names of Hafiz Saeed and 37 others, who are affiliated with JuD or Lashkar-e-Taiba, in the Exit Control List (ECL).
The ministry has sent letters to all the provincial governments and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
The move, which bars the 38 individuals from leaving Pakistan , comes days after the authorities placed Saeed under house arrest along with four others — Abdullah Ubaid, Zafar Iqbal, Abdur Rehman Abid and Qazi Kashif Niaz.
The JuD has already been declared as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US in June 2014. Saeed also carries a reward of $10 million announced by the US for his role in terror activities.
Swarup also said Saeed’s request for removal of his name from a list that bars him from leaving Pakistan was a matter concerning him and his handlers there.
“It is between Hafiz Saeed and his handlers in Pakistan…,” Swarup said.
In a letter to Pakistan’s interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Saeed, the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack in which 166 people died, asked the Pakistan government to immediately remove his name from a list that bars him from leaving the country, claiming he was neither a security risk nor his outfit ever engaged in terrorist activities.
Source: HindustanTimes