Pakistan court sentences Mumbai attack mastermind to 31-year jail term

Islamabad, Apr 8 (EFE).- An anti-terror court in Pakistan on Friday sentenced Hafiz Saeed, leader of the Islamist group accused of carrying out the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, to 31 years in prison on charges of financing two terror groups.

“The cases were filed by the Punjab Counter Terrorism Department in which he (Saeed) was sentenced to 31 years imprisonment,” Kashif Hussain, a judicial official at the anti-terror court in the eastern city of Lahore, told EFE on phone.

The court said that “all the accused were involved in purchasing land in Mian Channu (an eastern town), which was used to raise funds for terrorism purposes,” he added.

The verdict also ordered the confiscation of all the properties of Saeed, leader of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa group, considered a front of the insurgent group Laskhar-e-Taiba, which has been held responsible for the Mumbai attacks and was banned after the bombings in the western Indian city.

These properties include a mosque and a madrassa (an Islamic school). The court also imposed a fine worth 340,000 Pakistani rupees (1,800) on the leader.

Saeed is already in prison after having been sentenced in other cases.

In February 2020, an anti-terror court sentenced Saeed to an 11-year-jail term, while in November 2020 he was slapped with another 10 and a-half years behind bars apart from being fined 100,000 rupees.

In the 2008 Mumbai bombings, coordinated attacks were carried out at a train station, a Jewish center, many restaurants and hotels in India’s financial capital, including the iconic Taj Mahal hotel, killing 173 people and injuring over 200.

Since then, India has pressurized Pakistan to bring the perpetrators of the attack to justice and to speed up the judicial processes.

India also accuses the LeT of carrying out other terrorist attacks in India-administered Kashmir, a disputed territory over which New Delhi and Islamabad have fought two wars and had several minor skirmishes. EFE

aa-hbc/ia