Pakistan anti-terrorism court sentences LeT chief Hafiz Saeed to 31 years in jail

According to news agency ANI, the Lahore Anti-terrorism court has also imposed a fine of Rs 3,40,000 on LeT chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed.

ISLAMABAD: In a significant development, Pakistan anti-terrorism court on Friday sentenced global terrorist and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) chief Hafiz Saeed to 31 years in jail. According to news agency ANI, the Lahore Anti-terrorism Court also imposed a fine of Rs 3,40,000 on LeT chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed.

The anti-terrorism court also ordered the authorities to confiscate the properties of Hafiz Saeed, who is the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai terror attack and the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001.

Earlier in five such cases, the 70-year-old radical cleric had already been convicted to 36 years imprisonment. The total sentence of imprisonment will run concurrently. Saeed may have to spend not many years in jail because his sentence will run concurrently, a lawyer told news agency PTI.

Saeed is a UN-designated terrorist on whom the US has placed a USD 10 million bounty. He was arrested in July 2019 in the terror financing cases. Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) is the front organisation for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) which is responsible for carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people, including six Americans.

JuD chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Maulana Masood Azhar, the founder of Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), and key Mumbai attacks perpetrator Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi are among India's most wanted terrorists.

These terrorists have been booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and figure in the list of most-wanted individuals by the Indian government for their involvement in various anti-India activities such as bomb blasts, killings and other conspiracies which somehow compromised the country's internal security.

The names of these terrorists have been mentioned in the latest updated list of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), which is responsible for securing the internal security of the country besides taking strict actions against those conspiring against India.

Azhar, Saeed and Lakhvi are among the top five in the list of 31 terrorists, along with dreaded Indian gangster-tuned-drug lord Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar and Wadhawa Singh Babbar, a key leader of banned terror outfit Babbar Khalsa International (BKI).