Pakistan cracks down on Mumbai attack suspects

Pakistan has ordered the detention of a firebrand cleric linked to the 2008 Mumbai attacks which killed 166 people, according to a government directive seen by AFP late Monday, after years of pressure to act.

Hafiz Saeed, who heads the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) group and has a $10 million US bounty on his head, is to be placed under “preventative detention”, according the order from the interior ministry.

It was dated January 29, but it did not clarify what was meant by “preventative detention” and it was not clear when any action would be carried out.

AFP reporters at a JuD centre in Lahore said no police could be seen there, and JuD sources said police officials had not yet shown them any detention order.

JuD, listed as a terror outfit by the United Nations, is considered by the US and India to be a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the militant group blamed for the onslaught on the Indian financial capital.

The horror of the Mumbai carnage played out on live television around the world as commandos battled the heavily armed gunmen, who arrived by sea on the evening of November 26, 2008.

It took the authorities three days to regain full control of the city and New Delhi has long said there is evidence that “official agencies” in Pakistan were involved in plotting the attack.

Islamabad denies the charge.

But for years JuD operated freely across the country, popular for its charity works especially in the wake of natural disasters, and testing Islamabad’s vow to tackle militancy.

Despite the bounty against him Saeed led a high-profile public life, regularly delivering fiery anti-India speeches.

The detention order surfaced hours after Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar hinted that a crackdown was imminent.

He told reporters in Islamabad earlier Monday that, given the group had been under observation for years and was blacklisted internationally, Pakistan is “under obligation to take some action”.

“The situation will be clear on this by tomorrow,” he said, without giving further details.

The order from the interior ministry placed JuD and a foundation tied to it on a watch list, and also ordered the “preventative detention” of four other members in various cities in Punjab.

If Saeed is arrested the group will go to court in protest, JuD spokesman Yahya Mujahid told AFP.

India has long seethed at Pakistan’s failure either to hand over or prosecute those accused of planning and organising the Mumbai attacks, while Pakistan has alleged that India failed to give it crucial evidence.

Islamabad’s decision in 2015 to release an alleged mastermind of the attacks, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, was slammed as an “insult” by New Delhi.

Pakistan has long been accused of playing a “double game” with militants by supporting groups it thinks it can use for its own strategic ends, particularly in disputed Kashmir.

Pakistan and India both control part of Kashmir but claim the whole of the territory and have fought two of their three wars over it since independence from Britain in 1947.

Source: AFP