Summary:
Mumbai: Hafiz Saeed, the Lashkar-e-Taiba founder sanctioned by the UN Security Council, is not serving time in jail but at his Johar Town house in Lahore from where he runs the terror group, according to people familiar with the matter.
Saeed was formally placed under arrest in July 2019, months before he was sentenced to 10 years and six months in jail in a terror financing case in February this year that was described by the United States as an “important step forward”.
Last week, Saeed was handed down another set of jail terms in two more cases of terror financing.
.
Mumbai: Hafiz Saeed, the Lashkar-e-Taiba founder sanctioned by the UN Security Council, is not serving time in jail but at his Johar Town house in Lahore from where he runs the terror group, according to people familiar with the matter.
Saeed was formally placed under arrest in July 2019, months before he was sentenced to 10 years and six months in jail in a terror financing case in February this year that was described by the United States as an “important step forward”.
Last week, Saeed was handed down another set of jail terms in two more cases of terror financing.
Hafiz Saeed’s arrest and his subsequent conviction have been seen as an effort by the Imran Khan government to stay off the Financial Action Task Force ‘black list’ that could potentially entail extensive economic sanctions and as Prime Minister Imran Khan once put it, destroy Pakistan’s economy.
But an Indian intelligence input accessed by Hindustan Times indicates that Hafiz Saeed is not in Lahore’s high-security Kot Lakhpat jail as had been widely publicised.
“He is mostly at home… ostensibly in protective custody that even lets him receive guests,” an intelligence official said.
Last month, according to the intelligence input, Saeed’s visitor at home was Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the chief operational commander and the head of the LeT’s jihad wing.
The meeting is learnt to have centered around some steps that they needed to take to collect funds for jihad.