Imtiaz Gul
Once dreaded by many as an “untouchable supremo”, the dreaded Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed has now been convicted in four out of the 41 cases he and his associates had been facing in various anti-terror courts.
The latest conviction comes by an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Lahore which sentenced four leaders of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, including Saeed, to 10 years in jail.
The fiery Hafiz Saeed was arrested on July 17 last year in the terror financing cases, months after getting an 11 year term in jail in two terror financing cases in February.
With the conviction, Saeed’s property will also be confiscated. Two of his associates – Zafar Iqbal and Yahya Mujahid – have also been sentenced to 10-and-a-half years each, while the court awarded a six-month imprisonment to his brother-in-law Abdul Rehman Makki. They were all founding members of the meanwhile banned militant outfit Lashkare Taiba.
Hafiz Saeed’s close aide, Abdul Rehman Makki has been sentenced to six-month jail.
Hafiz Saeed is wanted in India for planning the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008, when 10 terrorists killed 166 people and injured hundreds more. He is also on the UN and US list of “global terrorists” with $10 million bounty on his head.
India has long been asking for Saeed to be turned in for trial on charges of attacks on Indian security forces in the Indian-occupied Kashmir.
The string of trials and convictions of Saeed and his aides is a clear indication of the clampdown that JuD – as well as another banned outfit Jaishe Mohammad – have been facing on charges of involvement in acts of terrorism, primarily in Kashmir that is under the Indian occupation.
Both groups have a large following in Punjab – Pakistan’s most populous province – and have been in the eye of the storm ever since the country began implementing an Action Plan given to it by the global terror and money-laundering watchdog – the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Observers argue that none of the groups is likely to recover from the crackdown that they have been facing since June 2018, when the country was put in FATF’s gray list and the implementation of the Action Plan began.
Their status as “untouchable supreme leaders“ is permanently dented, they believe.
The FATF Plan essentially suggests concrete demonstrable action against terror financing and money-laundering. Pakistan has already complied with over two-thirds of the deliverables and is striving for 100 percent compliance by early next year.
