Mumbai attack mastermind and JuD chief Hafiz Saeed filed a petition in the Lahore High Court, seeking protection from arrest ahead of the arrival of the UNSC's sanctions monitoring team on 24 January, saying the government wants to arrest him at the behest of India and the US.
The founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) said the government of Pakistan has plans to take adverse action against him.
"The PML-N government wants to arrest me at the behest of United States and India," he said, adding that the US and Indian lobby for the last many years has been trying to prove that he was "somehow involved in Mumbai attacks".
Saeed further said the Punjab government of Shahbaz Sharif had detained him for 10 months without any legal ground.
A judicial review board, however, ordered his release after the government's failure to justify his house arrest.
Saeed requested the court to restrain the government from "acting in a manner which is not permitted by law, and directed it to enforce fundamental rights of the petitioner under Article 9 of the Constitution at remain at liberty".
Saeed also boasted that he is “founder/chairman of JuD and Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) and has established 142 schools, three universities and for the last many years, is engaged in activities of public welfare”.
Talking to reporters, Saeed said he would welcome the UN team to visit the JuD and FIF centres in the country.
"The UN team will come to know about our public welfare work if it visits our centres," he said.
As a United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) sanctions monitoring team is set to visit Pakistan in the last week of January for an assessment of Islamabad's compliance with the world body's sanctions regime, the country had denied direct access to Hafiz Saeed or his entities to the sanctions monitoring team, the Times of India reported, sourcing The Nation.
Amid mounting global pressure on Pakistan to act against Saeed and entities linked to him, a UNSC team will visit the country in the last week of January.
Saeed was put under the sanctions by the United Nations (UN) in December 2008 along with his organisation Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD). Saeed had petitioned the UN in last November seeking for a removal of his name from their list of sanctioned terrorists which they refused to do.
Saeed was listed under UN Security Council Resolution 1267 in December 2008.
The two-day visit of the UN Security Council's sanctions monitoring team will begin on Thursday, 25 January.
“The monitoring team of the UNSC 1267 Sanctions Committee will be here on 25 and 26 January,” a senior Pakistani official was quoted as saying by Dawn.
However, Pakistani officials insist that the trip is a routine visit.
On Friday, the US State Department said it had told clearly to Islamabad that Saeed is a “terrorist” and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, reacting strongly to Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s remarks that there was no case against the Mumbai attack mastermind.
State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert had said:
He is listed by the UNSC 1267, the Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee for targeted sanctions due to his affiliation with Lashkar-e- Taiba, which is a designated foreign terror organisation. We believe that he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
He is listed by the UNSC 1267, the Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee for targeted sanctions due to his affiliation with Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is a designated foreign terror organisation. We believe that he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Saeed, the chief of the Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), was released from house arrest in Pakistan in November.
The JuD is believed to be the front organisation for the LeT which is responsible for carrying out the Mumbai attack that killed 166 people. It had been declared as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US in June 2014.
“The terms of reference of the monitoring team for Pakistan visit are not publicly known, but as per its general mandate it assists the 1267 Committee in keeping an eye on the freezing of the financial assets of listed persons and entities and checking provision of training and other material to them and their travel,” the paper said.
The UNSC monitoring team intimates instances of non-compliance to the committee through its reports. At the same time it also advises and assists member states on implementation of the regime.
Pakistan has remained under the Financial Action Task Force scanner over allegations by the US and India about the UNSC sanctions not being fully implemented, the paper said.
The US Department of the Treasury has designated Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and the US, since 2012, has offered a $10 million reward for information that brings Saeed to justice.
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