New Delhi:
The US has put Hafiz Saeed on its list of most-wanted terrorists and has announced a reward of $10 million. Saeed, the founder of terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba and believed to be the mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, roams a free man in Pakistan. India says that there is enough evidence to nail Saeed and that the US bounty will put pressure on Pakistan to end a "farce." Pakistan says it has no official intimation of the US move.
(Read full text here)The big US bounty on Hafiz Saeed brings him at par with Taliban founder Mullah Omar, whom America holds responsible for the 9/11 attacks of 2001. In the 2008 Mumbai attack, 166 people were killed, six of them Americans. India has repeatedly asked Pakistan to detain Saeed who freely holds anti-India rallies in his country. Home Minister P Chidambaram said today that, "The most important thing in the announcement is that this will put pressure on Pakistan, which cannot keep continuing this farce of a trial."
Pakistan, Mr Chidambaram said, was "living in denial" and not doing its duty. "We gave many dossiers to Pakistan on 26/11 with his voice samples; in both Indian and Pakistan law those are criminal offences, we will continue to pursue the issue of Saeed with Pakistan, we think there is enough material to detain him and prosecute him," Mr Chidambaram said. Saeed has been on the list of most-wanted men for several years and was named a global terrorist in 2008.
The US announcement comes days before Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari makes a quick visit to India. He is scheduled to lunch with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on April 8 in Delhi, before making a private visit to the Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti shrine at Ajmer. This will be the first visit to India in seven years by a Pakistani head of state. President Pervez Musharraf had travelled to New Delhi in 2005.
Mr Zardari's interior minister Rehman Malik said he had no official intimation of the US bounty on Saeed. He said Pakistan had investigated Saeed, found no evidence and pointed out that Saeed's case had gone to his country's Supreme Court, which had bailed him out. "We have to confirm the authenticity...we do not have any official intimation. He is a citizen of Pakistan, we should have taken into confidence as to what has happened...but I will not like to give further comments on it unless I have some official intimation from the US."
Each time India has sought Saeed's arrest, Pakistan has sought "actionable" and "substantive" evidence against him before it can act.
Free man Saeed spoke to Al Jazeera TV shortly after the US announced the bounty. He scoffed saying that he was not hiding in a cave and also that "either the US is basing its decisions on wrong information being provided by India or they are just frustrated." Hafiz Saeed said the US move was prompted by the fact that he had been "organising rallies against the opening of supply lines to NATO forces in Afghanistan".
(Read: Hafiz Saeed responds to $10 million bounty on Al Jazeera)Hafiz Saeed is believed to be a powerful figure in Pakistan. He heads the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa, ostensibly a charitable organization, but one that even the United Nations has said fronts the deadly Lashkar. Saeed allegedly has close links with the army and the ISI. Ministers have been seen at public rallies that he has held in the Pakistan capital of Islamabad.
Both the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the terror outfit Lashkar are blacklisted by the US. The US has also announced a $3 million bounty on Saeed's brother-in-law and the man who allegedly co-founded the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Abdul Rehman Makki.
The announcement was made by visiting Under-Secretary of Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, on her first visit to India. Foreign Minister SM Krishna welcomed the US move, saying, "India welcomes this move to bring the perpetrators of Mumbai terror attacks to book. It sends a strong message to the Lashkar, its members and patrons that the international community is together in combating terrorism. This is a message to terrorists all over the world. I always insisted that he was the brain behind the terror attack in Mumbai."
India and the US, the minister said, had moved "closer than ever before in our common endeavour of fighting terrorism. Both sides have been victims of terrorism."
On its Rewards for Justice website, America describes Saeed as a red-haired Pakistani citizen with brown eyes, born on May 6, 1950 in Sargodha in the Punjab province of Pakistan. (
US announcement on $10 mn reward for capture of Hafiz Saeed)
Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, it says, "is a former professor of Arabic and Engineering, as well as the founding member of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a radical Deobandi Islamist organization dedicated to installing Islamist rule over parts of India and Pakistan, and its military branch, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba. Saeed is suspected of masterminding numerous terrorist attacks, including the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which resulted in the deaths of 166 people, including six American citizens."