Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed has been spreading terror in the name of Islam, Pakistan’s Interior Ministry told the Federal Review Board on Saturday, PTI reported. Saeed, accused of plotting the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, and four of his aides have been under house arrest by the Punjab government since January 30. The 90-day house incarceration was extended by another three months from April 30.

Saeed, who appeared before the judicial review board on Saturday, said he had been kept confined for voicing the concerns of Kashmiris and for criticising the Pakistan government for its “weak line” on Kashmir. “The allegations levelled by the government against me had never been proved by any state institution. My organisation and I have been victimised for raising the voice for freedom of Kashmir and criticising the government’s weak policy on the Kashmir issue,” Saeed reportedly told the judicial review board.

Advertisement

The board asked the government to provide a complete report on the detention of Saeed and his aides – Zafar Iqbal, Abdul Rehman Abid, Abdullah Ubaid and Qazi Kashif Niaz – for the next hearing on May 15.

Saeed has been detained under Section 11-EEE(1) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1977. The United Nations Security Council had imposed sanctions on JuD and Saeed in December 2008 for supporting the al-Qaeda and Taliban. The United States, which had declared JuD a terrorist organisation in 2014, had earlier offered $10 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Saeed in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. JuD is a front for the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba militant organisation.

Meanwhile, India’s Ministry of External Affairs, responding to an RTI, said it had not received any request for the extradition of Hafiz Saeed or underworld gangster Dawood Ibrahim from the agencies investigating them for various crimes, PTI reported.