Hafiz Saeed inaugurates party office in Islamabad, kicks-off campaign for Pakistan parliamentary polls

JuD chief Hafiz Saeed on Saturday inaugurated the office of his recently launched political outfit Milli Muslim League (MML) in Islamabad.

Lahore: 26/11 attack mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed on Saturday inaugurated the office of his recently launched political outfit Milli Muslim League (MML) in Islamabad. The election office was inaugurated for NA53 by Hafiz Saeed himself.

Hafiz Saeed, his son Hafiz Talha Saeed and son-in-law Hafiz Khalid Waleed and hundreds of his supporters later kicked off the election campaign for the parliamentary election in Pakistan scheduled to be held later this year. 

Saeed is promoting his son and son-in-law to contest the upcoming elections, among the 265 candidates fielded by the Jamaat-ud-Dawah for national and provincial assembly seats across Pakistan.

His newly-floated party Milli Muslim League is contesting elections on the cover of ''Allahu Akbar Tehreek'' (AAT) - a little known political entity.

Milli Muslim League got clearance to contest the elections this year.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has recently accepted the nomination papers of Hafiz Talha Saeed (son) and Hafiz Khalid Waleed (son-in-law) for National Assembly seat-91 (Sargodha-IV) and National Assembly seat-133 (Lahore-XI) respectively, the Dawn, quoted JuD`s Deputy Information Secretary Ahmed Nadeem, as saying.

The AAT, which was formed about 15 years ago, was registered with the ECP in 2013.

The JuD, a front for the Lashkar-e-Toiba terror outfit which carried out the 2008 Mumbai attack which claimed 166 lives, launched its political front Milli Muslim League (MML).

The ECP had earlier rejected MML's application to register Saeed`s political party on the Pakistan interior ministry's recommendation, saying that the "MML has links with banned militant outfits".

In a letter to ECP in September last year, the Interior Ministry said the `recent political activities of MML have been officially objected to at the diplomatic level`. The MML will put forward candidates from 80 NA and 185 provincial seats from across Pakistan, the report said.

However, Punjab will remain the focus, where 50 NA and 152 provincial assembly candidates will be contesting from.

The AAT will contest elections from Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on provincial and national assembly seats, as per several media reports.

This is in contradiction with the AAT`s earlier denial of forming an alliance with any political party, saying that, all candidates contesting the elections on its platform, including the ones from the MML, will be members of the AAT only.

(With Agency inputs)