Pakistan govt, not India, behind my house arrest: Hafiz Saeed

The JuD chief has claimed that he was actually detained by the Pakistan government to stop him from raising the Kashmir issue.

Lahore: 26/11 mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed on Friday backtracked from his earlier statement that India and the US were behind his house arrest in Pakistan.

The terror outfit chief claimed that he was actually detained by the Pakistan government to stop him from raising the Kashmir issue.

"It was not the Modi government...But our own Pakistani government that had detained me for 10 months. The Pakistani government wanted to stop me from raising the Kashmir issue," Saeed said.

The JuD chief made this statement while speaking at the Nazria Pakistan Trust here.

Saeed, who is wanted in India in connection with the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, had earlier blamed India and the US for his detention.

He had said that the Pakistani government had put him under house arrest under tremendous pressure from India and the US.

Saeed was finally released from house arrest last year in November.

The JuD chief further said the Pakistan government should not ignore the "atrocities" in Kashmir and play its role to help the Kashmiri people secure freedom.

"I fail to understand as to why Islamabad is ignoring the sacrifices of Kashmiri people. Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi should stage a sit-in along with at least five members of his Cabinet outside the office of the UN on February 5 to express solidarity with the Kashmiri people," he said.

Saeed, who is also the founder of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, carries a bounty of USD 10 million on his head.

He also slammed the Pakistani media for allegedly speaking India's language.

"I really get hurt when I am called a terrorist by elements in the Pakistani media for speaking on the issue of Kashmir," he said.

Saeed walked free on November 24 after the Pakistan government decided against detaining him further in any other case, in a setback to India's efforts to bring to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attack. 

(With PTI inputs)