Crime & Justice

India asks Pakistan to extradite alleged mastermind of Mumbai attacks

New Delhi, Dec 29 (EFE). – The Indian government announced Friday that it has again asked Pakistan to extradite Hafiz Saeed, the leader of the Islamist group accused of organizing the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.

“The person in question is wanted in numerous cases in India. He is also a UN-designated terrorist. In this regard, we have sent a request to the government of Pakistan, along with relevant supporting documents, for his extradition to India to face trial in a specific case.” Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Arindamn Bagchi told a news conference.

The request was sent to the neighboring country “a few weeks ago,” the official added.

Saeed was sentenced to 11 years in prison by a Pakistani anti-terrorism court in February 2020 for financing terrorism, and has since been sentenced to more than 40 years in prison in several cases related to funding armed groups.

Pakistani Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch confirmed India’s extradition request to the media, but reminded “that there is no bilateral extradition treaty between Pakistan and India.”

Saeed is the chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), which was considered a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the insurgent organization responsible for the Mumbai attacks and subsequently banned.

The Mumbai attacks were a series of assaults on hotels, a railway station and a synagogue that took place on November 26, 2008, killing 166 people and injuring more than 200.

India has since pressured Pakistan to bring the perpetrators of the attacks to justice quickly.

India says the LeT group has also carried out other terrorist attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir, a disputed region over which India and Pakistan have fought two wars. EFE

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