26/11: Lashkar founder Hafiz Saeed chargsheeted for first time

Mumbai, Feb 26 (PTI) For the first time, founder of
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) Hafiz Muhammad Saeed has been named in a
chargesheet for his suspected role in hatching the criminal
conspiracy to execute the Mumbai terror strikes.

Mumbai Police, which filed a 11,280-page chargesheet
Wednesday before a magistrate, has named 59-year-old Saeed as
the first accused wanted for his suspected role in planning
the unprecedented attack on the country's financial hub.

This is for the first time that Hafiz Saeed has been
named in a chargesheet, a move which will pave the way for
approaching Interpol for issuance of a red corner notice
against him.

In its voluminous chargesheet, the Mumbai Police said
that Saeed was among the 35 people who "aided and abetted" in
providing military precision-like planning and training
between 2007 and 2008 end at Muridke (LeT headquarters),
Manshera, Muzzafarabad, Azizabad, Paanch Teni in Pakistan and
Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

Saeed founded the LeT alongwith Zafar Iqbal in Kunar
province of Afghanistan in 1989. Lashkar is a banned
organisation in India, Pakistan, the US, the UK, Russia and
Australia. The European Union has also banned the outfit.

An offshoot of markaz-ud-Dawatul-Irshad, Lashkar
renamed itself as Jamat-ud-Dadwa, which was also banned by the
United Nations.

The clout of 59-year-old Saeed in Pakistan started
during the regime of the military dictator Zia-ul-Haq.

He started raising cadre and funds for campaign
against the erstwhile Soviet Union and the socialist
government in Afghanistan.

Within two years of the formation of the LeT, several
cells were set up by Lashkar in Jammu and Kashmir by the
outfit and its presence saw flow of foreign mercenaries to the
state.

Saeed has always been the first target of Pakistan
whenever international pressure increases on that country for
supporting terrorism.

He was detained on December 21, 2001 after New Delhi
accused him of being involved with the December 13, 2001
attack on Parliament. He was held until March 31, 2002,
arrested again on May 15, and was placed under house arrest on
October 31 of the same year.

After the 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings,
provincial government of Punjab, Pakistan arrested him on
August 9, 2006 and kept him under house arrest but he was
released on August 28, 2006 after a Lahore High Court order.

Since the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, India has
submitted a formal request to the UN Security Council to put
the group Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Saeed on the list of individuals
and organizations sanctioned by the United Nations for being
associated with terrorism. PTI SP
PMR
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