Need action on 26/11 planner Hafiz Saeed: India to Pak

New Delhi/Islamabad: Indicating that it was neither impressed nor convinced by the mere “detention” of Hafiz Saeed, the mastermind of Mumbai terror attacks in 2008, India on Tuesday said that only “a credible crack down” on all “organisations involved in cross border terrorism” would be proof of Pakistan’s sincerity.

Dismissing the house arrest of 26/11 accused as tokenism, New Delhi said Islamabad had carried out such “exercises” of detention “in the past also”.

With the Trump administration mounting pressure, Pakistani authorities on Monday night put Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed and four others under house arrest under an Anti-Terrorism Act.

The view among foreign policy-watchers is that Islamabad had acted out of fear and under severe pressure from the US after indications from the Trump administration that Pakistan could also be included in a list of Muslim-majority countries from where immigration to the US has been banned.

Reacting to repots of detention, the ministry of external affairs (MEA) said, “India has long maintained that the United Nations Security Council 1267 provisions pertaining to listing and proscription of known terrorist entities and individuals must be effectively and sincerely enforced by all member states. We have also consistently called for bringing known terrorists under the ambit of the 1267 sanctions. Exercises such as yesterday’s orders against Hafiz Saeed and others have been carried out by Pakistan in the past also. Only a credible crack down on the mastermind of the Mumbai terrorist attack and terrorist organisations involved in cross border terrorism would be proof of Pakistan’s sincerity.”

Reports from Islamabad and Lahore said that Hafiz Saeed’s supporters staged protests across Pakistan against his house arrest, which they said was made under pressure from the United States and India. Director General of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor, however, told reporters that the decision to put the JuD chief Hafiz Saeed under house arrest was “ a policy decision”.

“This is a policy decision that the state took in (the) national interest. Lots of institutions will have to do their jobs,” he said, and denied that any foreign pressure was behind the arrest of the JuD chief.

A defiant Saeed, meanwhile, said his detention would give a “fresh impetus” to the Kashmiris’ “struggle against India”.

Hafiz Saeed was detained Monday at JuD’s Lahore headquarters at Masjid Al-Qudsia Chauburji and was later shifted to his Jauhar Town residence which has been declared as a sub-jail by authorities in Punjab province.

“The government has detained Saeed and four other JuD and Falaha-i-Insanyat (FIF) leaders for 90 days with effect from January 30 but this detention may further be extended on completion of this period if required,” an interior ministry official told PTI.

The Pakistan government may take some further steps against the JuD and its sister organisations in coming days, the official said, adding that names of several activists of JuD and FIF, a charity run by Saeed, have been placed on Exit Control List (ECL) to stop them from leaving the country.