Islamabad: Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz
Mohammad Saeed is the subject of an investigation by Pakistani
authorities but he will not be arrested till there is evidence
against him, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said today.
"We will not arrest him (Saeed) until we get evidence.
I am not saying whether we have or don’t have something
(against him), it is a matter of investigation," Malik told
reporters at the Islamabad Press Club.
"Hafiz Saeed is being investigated. If we get
something, we will definitely arrest him but not on someone’s
say so," Malik said in response to a question on India’s
demand for Saeed’s arrest for alleged involvement in planning
and executing the Mumbai attacks.
Malik also made it clear that Pakistani authorities
would not arrest Saeed only because Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone
terrorist captured during the Mumbai attacks, had given a
statement against the JuD chief.
"Give us the evidence. If we could arrest
(Lashker-e-Taiba operations commander Zakiur Rehman) Lakhvi as
the mastermind of (the Mumbai attack), we can also arrest him
(Saeed)," he said.
Saeed was placed under house arrest in December last
year after the UN Security Council imposed restrictions on the
JuD and its leaders in the wake of the Mumbai attacks that
killed nearly 180 people.
He was freed on the orders of the Lahore High Court
earlier this year. Malik had claimed last year that the
government had banned the JuD but it subsequently emerged
during court hearings that no formal notification was ever
issued to proscribe the group.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, December 23, 2009, 19:50