Met Laden in 1980, carried out many attacks, how did Hafiz Saeed become India’s most wanted terrorist?

India on Thursday asked Pakistan to extradite Hafiz Saeed. Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, is one of India’s most wanted terrorists. The Foreign Ministry has requested the Pakistani Foreign Ministry to initiate legal process for Saeed’s extradition. India has repeatedly demanded that Saeed be handed over for trial for his suspected role in the Mumbai attacks but Pakistan has refused to do so. India is not alone. America has also placed a reward of 10 million dollars on Saeed.

A look at Saeed’s crimes

Saeed traveled to Afghanistan in the late 1970s or early 1980s to receive terrorist training. Here he met Abdullah Azam, the guru of Osama bin Laden and other Afghan fighters. Saeed’s Jamaat-ud-Dawa is a front group of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Saeed had founded Lashkar in the 1990s. The US Treasury Department website says Lashkar-e-Taiba has carried out numerous attacks on Indian military and civilian targets since 1993. However, Sayeed left its leadership after India accused him of being behind the attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001. The Indian government implicated Lashkar-e-Taiba in the attacks on several Mumbai trains in July 2006 and the attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001. Lashkar-e-Taiba is also suspected to be involved in the attacks in New Delhi in October 2005 and Bengaluru in December 2005.

In 2005 Saeed determined where graduates of Lashkar-e-Taiba’s camp in Pakistan should be sent to fight and personally organized the infiltration of Lashkar-e-Taiba militants into Iraq during a visit to Saudi Arabia . In 2006 Saeed oversaw the management of a terrorist camp, including the camp’s funding. Saeed was arrested and released several times. Denies any involvement in terrorism, including the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Saeed told Pakistan’s Geo TV in 2008 that no one from Lashkar-e-Taiba is in Jamaat-ud-Dawa and I have never been the chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba. In July 2019, Saeed was arrested in a terrorism financing case while traveling from Lahore to Gujranwala. The JuD chief was sentenced to 32 years in jail in April 2022 in two terror financing cases.

The development comes in the backdrop of efforts to avoid blacklisting by the Financial Action Task Force. Pakistan was in the watchdog’s gray list since 2018, it was removed in October 2022. The US Treasury Department has designated Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. US officials in Washington said the decision to offer the $10 million reward under the State Department’s long-running Rewards for Justice program came after months of discussions among US agencies involved in counterterrorism. Saeed has been in jail since 2019. However, a new political front group founded by Saeed has fielded its candidates in most national and provincial assembly constituencies across Pakistan for the February 8 general elections. The Pakistan Markazi Muslim League (PMML) party founded by Saeed says it is a political party.

In a video message, PMML President Khalid Masood Sindhu said his party is contesting most of the national and provincial assembly seats. He said that we want to come to power not for corruption but to serve the people and make Pakistan an Islamic welfare state. Saeed’s son Talha Saeed is contesting from NA-127 of Lahore. When contacted, Sindhu denied her party’s links with Sayeed’s organisation. Milli Muslim League (MML) was the political face of JuD. It had fielded candidates on most of the seats, especially in Punjab province, but failed to win even a single seat.