Hafiz Saeed under house arrest: `Pakistan acting under pressure`

New Delhi: Defence Expert Brigadier (Retd) SK Chatterji on Friday said that Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed`s house arrest clearly indicates that Pakistan is acting under pressure at the moment.

"As Saeed is now being put under house arrest along with other four-five people and it appeared that there was some sort of pressure under which the Pakistanis were working," Brigadier (Retd) Chatterji said.

"The Pakistani Interior Ministry also made a statement that Hafiz Saeed works against the interest of Pakistan which is quite a departure (from the earlier stand)," he added.

Meanwhile, another defence expert Ashok Kumar Behuria said this development is a signal from Pakistan to India and the world that Islamabad is serious about taking action against terrorists.

"Let us see how it unfolds, but if you look at it closely I would say there could be some truth in the analysis that the civilian administration is signalling it to India and the wider world that they are serious about taking actions against all kinds of terrorists. In that sense, it`s a good step," Behuria told ANI.

"There is some amount of consensus between the civilian administration and the military at the moment because you have a new chief, who has just come in and he is not as much in control over Army as the ex-chief was. Maybe, he is not opposed to the steps taken by the civilian government," he added.

Behuria further said that similar actions have taken place in the past as well.

"Terrorist outfits have been banned, they have been allowed to come back in different names and they have been put behind bars then again released and used against India," he added.

Pakistan`s Interior Ministry has included the names of Hafiz Saeed and 37 others, who are affiliated with JuD or Lashkar-e-Toiba, on the Exit Control List.

The Ministry has sent letters to all the provincial governments and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

The move, which bars the 38 individuals from leaving Pakistan, comes two days after authorities placed Saeed under house arrest along with four others namely Abdullah Ubaid, Zafar Iqbal, Abdur Rehman Abid and Qazi Kashif Niaz.