India wants 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed extradited

New Delhi: India has sent a request to Pakistan to extradite 26/11 Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed to India, foreign ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi told reporters here on Friday.

Hafiz Saeed, 71, was sentenced to 33 years in jail by a Pakistan court after being convicted in two cases of terror financing in April 2022. The case was filed by Pakistan's Counter-Terrorism Department. He, however, has continued to evade punishment for involvement in the 26/11 terror strikes. He has been sentenced in multiple cases of terror financing in the past. In 2020 too, he was sentenced to 15 years in jail.

Saeed has spent years in and out of detention in varying forms in Pakistan, sometimes under house arrest. But he had roamed freely across the country and addressed incendiary speeches targeting India with impunity.

India's extradition request also comes at a time when a political front backed by the 26/11 Mumbai attacks mastermind will fight the Pakistan election. Hafiz Saeed's son and terror group Laskhar-e-Taiba leader Hafiz Talha Saeed is one of the candidates. Hafiz Talha Saeed is considered No 2 in the LeT, second only to his father. Last year, the Home Ministry declared him a designated terrorist under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

For years, the US has offered $10 million as an award for information that could lead to Hafiz Saeed's arrest. He had been moving around freely in Pakistan as the head of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa or JuD which presents itself as a charitable organisation but is seen as a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba.