By IANS,
Islamabad/New Delhi: Pakistan Wednesday banned the Jamaat-ud Dawa (JuD) of Hafiz Saeed, who India says masterminded the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, and 24 other religious and welfare organisations.
Also banned is the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror group that Saeed founded and which morphed into the JuD in the wake of the December 13, 2001, attack on the Indian parliament that New Delhi blamed on the outfit.
The interior ministry Wednesday presented the list of banned organisations in the National Assembly, the lower house of Pakistan’s parliament, Geo TV reported.
The ministry, however, was silent on the status of Saeed, whose release from house arrest in June has sparked an outcry in India. The Pakistani government has appealed this but the Supreme Court Monday indefinitely adjourned the hearing on this.
India Saturday provided Pakistan an additional seven-page dossier of evidence relating to the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and underlined that it has given Islamabad enough proof to prosecute Saeed.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram said Saturday: “There is enough evidence to proceed against Saeed.”
“The evidence provided in three dossiers is, in our view, sufficient to investigate role of Hafiz Saeed (in the Mumbai carnage),” the minister said, adding: “The investigations in Pakistan will also throw up enough evidence.”
Saeed, who had been placed under house arrest in December after the UN proscribed the JuD in the wake of the Nov 26-29, 2008, Mumbai terror attacks, was released by the Lahore High Court in June citing lack of evidence.
On July 28, a defiant Pakistan said it would not arrest Saeed till adequate proof was provided of his involvement in the Mumbai carnage.
“We cannot arrest him till adequate proof is provided. There is no proof,” Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik told a private TV news channel in an interview.
The latest flip-flop came 12 days after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said July 16 his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani had informed him that “common consensus” was being evolved and that “action will have to be taken against him (Saeed)”.
Two days before that, on July 14, Pakistan’s Punjab provincial government had dissociated itself from the case against Saeed, saying the federal government had not furnished “solid evidence” to warrant his continued house arrest.
Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone gunman captured alive during the Mumbai mayhem, has admitted to being a Pakistani national and to being trained by the LeT for the Mumbai attacks.
Pakistan has charged five men, including LeT commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, with involvement in the Mumbai mayhem.
Last month, Pakistan handed over a dossier to India admitting its nationals were involved in the attacks. The dossier came days before the July 16 Gilani-Manmohan Singh meeting on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Summit at the Egyptian resort of Sharam el-Shaikh.
Speaking to reporters after the two-hour-long meeting, Manmohan Singh said he had raised the matter of Pakistan taking action against Saeed.
“The Pakistan prime minister told me that there is common consensus being evolved that action will have to be taken against him. The Punjab government, which is of the opposition party, is being persuaded,” he said.
Among the other organisations Pakistan banned Tuesday are: Al-Qaeda, Sipah-e-Muhammed, Sipah-e-Sahaba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Lashkar Jhangvi, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Islamic Students Movement, Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Muahammadi and Balochistan Liberation Army.