Time of accepting Hafiz Saeed as a terrorist by Pak is suspicious: India

Raveesh Kumar said “It is quite surprising that it took Pakistan ten years to figure out which was known by the entire world that he is a terrorist. I think this is something which is globally known.”

“In any case I think the timing of such declaration of Hafiz Saeed as a terrorist is very suspect. We will have to see if they are willing to walk the talk and take concrete measures against terrorists and terror outfits which are operation from the soil of Pakistan,” MEA spokesperson added.

Amid global pressure, Pakistan on Monday declared 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. Last month, the Pak government had also banned companies and individuals from making donations to the JuD.

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) 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 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.