At a time when there is talk in Pakistan of a fresh crackdown on 17 terror outfits including the Jamaat-ud-Dawah, its chief Hafiz Saeed made a rare television appearance on Tuesday night and challenged India to prove his organisation's links with the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which resulted in a prolonged suspension of engagement between India and Pakistan.
In what was billed by Geo News as his first ever “on-camera interview” — in earlier interactions, Saeed always spoke with his back to the camera — the JuD chief held India responsible for last week's terror attack on the Sufi shrine, Data Darbar, in Lahore.
His explanation for the attacks on religious institutions in the country was that it was the handiwork of foreign elements which wanted to create religious disharmony in Pakistan, which, as it is, was being forced to remain a frontline state in the war on terror.
Describing suicide attacks in Pakistan as “illegal,” the JUD chief — who India alleges is one of the masterminds of the 26/11 attacks — demanded public execution of suicide attackers in the country. He rubbished reports of a fresh crackdown on the JuD in the wake of the Data Darbar attack.
The interview — aired for the first time late Tuesday night — took media watchers by surprise as Saeed has denied many scribes interviews on the pretext that he was not allowed such interaction.
The timing of the interview is now being questioned as it comes midway between the last India-Pakistan engagement and the one scheduled for July 15.
In fact, parallels are being drawn with another interview he gave in March this year; soon after Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir travelled to India for talks with his counterpart, Nirupama Rao, in the first India-initiated bid to break the ice that had settled on bilateral relations since November 2008.
That interview in which Saeed endorsed a ‘jihad' in Kashmir drew a sharp reaction from India with Home Minister P. Chidambaram saying: “We are clear on the role of Hafiz Saeed. Based on the evidence given, any responsible government would have investigated the role. Far from investigating the role, Pakistan is allowing him to make these statements. It is very unfortunate.”
