Pakistani on Monday extended the detention of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed and his close aides for three more months.
Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, has been under house arrest since January 30. The JuD and its charity arm Falah-i-Insaaniyat had also been put on a terrorist watch list.
A notification by the Home Ministry of Punjab province announced the decision to extend Saeed’s detention. Saeed and his aides have challenged their detention in the Lahore High Court but only a couple of hearings have been held so far in which the court had asked the government to provide written reasons for his arrest.
The crackdown on Saeed and his aides came in late January after Pakistani newspapers reported that the U.S. had threatened to impose sanctions on Pakistan if it did not ban the JuD. Pakistani authorities, however, denied the reports.
Meanwhile, the JuD changed its name to Tehrik-i-Azadi-i Kashmir. The U.N. and the U.S. have already declared the JuD a terrorist organisation, but Pakistan is yet to ban the group as it had got reprieve from the Lahore High Court. India has long accused the JuD and Saeed of launching terrorist attacks inside the country.
Saeed remained defiant despite the crackdown and alleged that the U.S. is putting pressure on Pakistan to ban his organisation on the behest of India. “We will go to the court if any such ban if imposed on the JuD,” he said in a statement issued after his arrest in January.
In January 2016, Pakistan's State bank had ordered to freeze all the assets of the JuD, including its bank accounts
