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Pakistan Arrests Clerics Linked to Mumbai Attack

by Sanjay Jha | December 11, 2008 at 08:15 pm

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Acting after the UN Security Council's sanctions on Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, Islamic militant group accused of orchestrating ghastly Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistan has banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa.

Pakistani placed the head of the Islamic extremist group, accused of carrying out last month's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, under house arrest, hours after the firebrand leader gave a press conference where he lashed out at UN sanctions imposed on him and his organisation.

The group's offices across Pakistan were being sealed and its activists are under observation.

Jamaatud Dawa Amir Hafiz Mohammad Saeed was placed under house arrest for three months as the countrywide crackdown on the organisation continued on Thursday.

Police sealed Qudsia Mosque, the headquarters of Jamaatud Dawa in Chauburji Chowk, and 18 other offices throughout Punjab.

Five offices were sealed in Sialkot. Twenty-five members of the organisation, including Ameer Hamza, Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki, Maulana Naseer Hamza, Saifullah Mansoor, Dawa’s director of public relations, Col (retd) Nazir Ahmed, and Rajanpur district president Talib Rehman, were detained. A large number of publications of the organisation were seized.

Hafiz Saeed was detained at his Johar Town residence under the maintenance of public order ordinance.

“Police have encircled the house of Hafiz Saeed and told him he cannot leave his home. They have told him that the detention order will be formally issued shortly,” his spokesman Abdullah Montazir said.

A police official told Dawn that detention orders had also been issued by the Punjab home department and raids were being conducted to arrest Yahya Mujahid, Abu Umer a number of other prominent members.