Saeed set to walk free ahead of 26/11 anniv

Smita Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 22

In a setback to India, Hafiz Saeed, accused of masterminding the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, is expected to walk free just ahead of the ninth anniversary of the 2008 terror strikes.

A Lahore High Court Judicial Review Board today denied further three-month detention of Saeed, as sought by the Punjab provincial government in Pakistan. “The government is ordered to release Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed if he is not wanted in any other case,” it ordered.

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Local media said the order was passed after a finance ministry official failed to cite sufficient evidence to link Saeed’s release to diplomatic and financial funding problems for Pakistan.

Reacting to the development with disappointment, an Indian official source said, “This exposes Pakistan’s duplicity on terror. It proves Pakistan has not put in much effort to ensure an  internationally proscribed terror mastermind is punished and stays in jail.” The court’s move comes just days after a proposal in the US Congress to delink action against Lashkar-e-Toiba, the parent organisation of JuD, from the certification process required to sanction funds to Pakistan. Saeed has been designated a global terrorist by the United Nations for his role in the Mumbai attacks that claimed 166 lives.

The US department of justice has a bounty of $10 million for actionable information against Saeed. Saeed was placed under house arrest on January 31 under the Anti-Terror Act for 90 days along with four aides. The detention was extended under the same Act. But subsequently, on July 28, Saeed was booked under the Public Safety Act or Maintenance of Public Order Act of 1960, with terrorism charges against him withdrawn. 

The court gave 30 days’ extension for Saeed’s detention last month. He is expected to walk free of his house arrest once this detention expires. 

According to sources, a high-level official meeting of the Punjab government has been convened. Options are being mulled to slap fresh charges on Hafiz Saeed before his current detention expires.  Public Prosecutor in the Mumbai trials, Ujjwal Nikam, while speaking to television stations, called the development a “befooling act”.