RirNEW DELHI: India took the news of Pakistan putting firebrand cleric Hafiz Saeed under “preventive detention” with the heavy dose of scepticism and said that a “credible crack down” of the perpetrators of Mumbai terror attack would be able to prove Islamabad’s sincerity.
Saeed, who has been reported to have been spewing venom against India in his public speeches, have been alleged to have a hand in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack that claimed 166 lives. Saeed has been the chief of the proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror outfit and has a bounty of $ 10 million on his head. He was on Monday put under house arrest in Lahore.
“Exercises such as yesterday’s (Monday’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,” Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.
The move comes close on the heels of Trump administration revealing that the immigrants from Pakistan will be undergoing extreme scrutiny before entering the US, while it put a ban on immigrants from seven Muslim dominated countries.
Saeed is presently heading the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), which Pakistan claims to be a charity group but the US has contended that it is a front for the LeT. In 2015, JuD was enlisted as a terror outfit by the United Nations Security Council under Resolution Number 1267. The Pakistan Ministry of Interior has placed the JuD and the Falah-e-Insaniyet Foundation under the watch list and issued a notification under which the Falah-e-Insaniyet Foundation has been included in the second schedule of their anti-terror legislation under UNSC Resolution No. 1267
“India has long maintained that the UNSC 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 1267 sanctions,” Swarup added.