Centre asks Pakistan to extradite Hafiz Saeed to face trial in India
The Lashkar-e-Taiba founder is wanted in India for carrying out 2008 Mumbai attacks, among other cases.
New Delhi has asked the Pakistan government to extradite Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed, who is wanted in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks among other cases, to face trial in India, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at a press briefing on Friday.
The attacks killed 166 people, including six Americans.
“We have conveyed a request a few weeks ago along with relevant supporting documents to the Government of Pakistan to extradite him to India to face trial in a particular case,” Bagchi said, adding that Saeed is wanted in multiple cases in India and has also been proscribed as a terrorist by the United Nations.
Saeed has been in jail in Pakistan since 2019 on multiple charges of terror financing along with other leaders of the banned terrorist outfit Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the front organisation of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. He is also a United Nations-designated terrorist and has a $10 million bounty on him.
Saeed traces his origins to a Gujjar family from Haryana who travelled to Pakistan’s Punjab during the Partition of India, reported The Hindu. He is a self-identified “professor” of Islamic studies who holds two Master’s degrees from Lahore University and a two-year specialisation at the King Saud University in Riyadh.