How Hafiz Saeed became one of India's most wanted terrorists

India on Thursday asked Pakistan to extradite Hafiz Saeed. Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and mastermind behind the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, is one of India’s most wanted terrorists. The Ministry of External Affairs has requested the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs to initiate the legal process for Saeed’s extradition. India has repeatedly demanded that Saeed be handed over for trial for his suspected role in the Mumbai attack but Pakistan has refused to do so. India isn’t alone. The US has also placed a $10 million bounty on Saeed. Let’s take a look at Saeed’s many crimes:              As per Hindustan Times, Saeed “travelled to Afghanistan during the late 1970s or the early 1980s to receive militant training.” Here, he met Abdullah Azzam – mentor to Osama bin Laden and other Afghanistan fighters. Saeed’s Jamaat-ud-Dawa is the front group for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Saeed founded LeT in the 1990s. The US treasury department website says the LeT “has conducted numerous attacks against Indian military and civilian targets since 1993.” However, Saeed abandoned its leadership after India accused it of being behind an attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001.

The LeT also carried out the 2008 Mumbai attack in which 166 people, including six Americans, were killed.

“The Government of India implicated LeT in the July 2006 attack on multiple Mumbai commuter trains, and in the December 2001 attack against the Indian Parliament. LeT is also suspected of involvement in attacks in New Delhi in October 2005, and in Bangalore in December 2005,” the website states. “In 2005, Saeed determined where graduates of a LeT camp in Pakistan should be sent to fight, and personally organized the infiltration of LeT militants into Iraq during a trip to Saudi Arabia. In 2006, Saeed oversaw the management of a terrorist camp, including funding of the camp,” the UN website states. Saeed, who has been arrested and released several times, denies any involvement with militancy, including the 2008 Mumbai attacks. He has also denied any links between the JuD and LeT. Saeed told Pakistan’s Geo TV  in 2008, “No Lashkar-e-Taiba man is in Jamaat-ud-Dawa and I have never been a chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba.” In July 2019, Saeed was arrested in connection with the terrorism financing case while on his way from Lahore to Gujranwala. The JuD chief was in April 2022 sentenced to 32 years in jail in two terror financing cases. “The sentences awarded to convict Hafiz Muhammad Saeed run concurrently of this case and of previously awarded, if any,” the court said in an order, dated 7 April, 2022. That development came in the backdrop of attempting to avoid being blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force. Pakistan, which had been on the watchdog’s “grey list” since 2018, was taken off it in October 2022. The US Department of the Treasury has designated Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.

The country has, since 2012, has offered a $10 million reward for information that brings Saeed to justice.

In Washington, US officials said the decision to offer the $10 million reward under the State Department’s longstanding “Rewards for Justice” program came after months of discussions among US agencies involved in counter-terrorism. Saeed has been in jail since 2019. However, a new political front group set up by Saeed has fielded candidates for most of the national and provincial assembly constituencies across Pakistan for the 8 February general elections. The Pakistan Markazi Muslim League (PMML) party – set up by Saeed – says it is a political party. The party, whose electoral symbol is a chair, says it wants to make Pakistan an Islamic welfare state. In a video message, PMML President Khalid Masood Sindhu said that his party is contesting on most of the national and provincial assembly seats. “We want to come to power not for corruption but to serve the people and make Pakistan an Islamic welfare state,” he said. Saeed’s son Talha Saeed is contesting from Lahore’s NA-127. When contacted, Sindhu denied his party’s link with Saeed’s outfit. “The PMML has no backing of Hafiz Saeed,” he claimed. In 2018, the Milli Muslim League (MML) was the political face of JuD. It had fielded candidates on most seats, especially in Punjab province but failed to win a single seat. For the 2024 polls, the PMML has been formed because of a ban on the MML. With inputs from agencies