Amid global pressure, Pakistan declares Hafiz Saeed a terrorist after amending anti-terror law

Islamabad, February 13: In a welcome move, Pakistan has declared 26/11 attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed as a terrorist. The move is a part of an ordinance that it introduced to ban all individuals and organizations sanctioned against by the UN Security Council.

Under the Pak’s existing provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act, groups sanctioned by the UN Security Council were not automatically listed as terrorist organisations in Pakistan. The ordinance amends Sections 11B and 11EE to include groups that have been sanctioned by the UN Security Council.

The ordinance will also have an impact on the al-Qaeda linked al-Akhtar Trust and al-Rasheed Trust which had already been sanctioned by the UN.

Last month, the government had also banned companies and individuals from making donations to the JuD, the FIF and other organisations. Jundullah was the last organisation declared “proscribed” by the government of Pakistan on 31 January, 2018 on the NACTA website. However, the JuD and the FIF continue to be on the NACTA “watch list”.

Lashkar-e-Taiba was declared a banned organisation under the UNSC resolution 1267 in 2005. The US State Department in 2014 had named the JuD as a foreign terrorist organisation, a designation that freezes assets the organisation has under the US jurisdiction.

The 67-yr old Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder Hafiz Seed has a $10 million American bounty on his head for terror activities. Saeed, the mastermind of the Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people, including six Americans, was included in the terror list on December 10, 2008, by the United Nations Security Council.