Hafiz Saeed put under house arrest in Lahore

Lahore: Amid pressure on Pakistan from the Trump administration, Mumbai attack mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed and four others were put under detention here in Punjab province on Monday.

Punjab government’s home department has issued detention order of Saeed and Lahore police have reached JuD headquarters in Chauburji to implement the order, it said.

He “is at Masjid-e-Qadsia Chauburji and a heavy contingent of police has surrounded the JuD headquarters”, JuD official Ahmed Nadeem, who is present at the premises of the outfit, said.

“The commanding police officer told us that he has with him the house arrest order of the JuD chief issued by the Punjab home department,” Nadeem said.

Punjab government’s action comes amidst pressure from the Trump administration to act against terror. The US has clearly told Islamabad that in case of not taking action against JuD and Saeed, it may face sanctions.

Three days back, Punjab’s interior ministry had included names of Saeed and Abdullah Ubaid, Zafar Iqbal, Abdur Rehman Abid and Qazi Kashif Niaz in the Watch List as per UNSC 1267 Sanctions and ordered their preventive detention.

Ubaid, Iqbal, Abid and Niaz were also also taken into preventive custody.

JuD is the front for the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror outfit which is responsible for numerous terror attacks in India, including the Mumbai terror strike of November 26, 2008, which was masterminded by Saeed. JuD has already been declared as a foreign terrorist organisation’ by the United States in June 2014. 

Talking on Dunya News programme Nuqta-e-Nazar, senior analyst Mujib-ur Rehman Shami said that the new United States (US) regime was quite tough on these organisations and the government might ban it too.

Ajmal Jami said that the statement by interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan earlier almost confirmed the rumours.