Pakistan detains top suspect Hafiz Saeed
A militant group held protests in Pakistan's major cities yesterday after its leader, one of the alleged masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was put under house arrest following years of foreign pressure.
Firebrand cleric Hafiz Saeed, who heads the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) group and has a $10 million bounty on his head, was placed under "preventative detention", according to an order from the interior ministry.
Police took Saeed away from a mosque in Lahore late Monday and escorted him to his residence, hours after Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar had hinted action against him was imminent.
But India yesterday expressed scepticism at the move. "Exercises such as yesterday's orders against Hafiz Saeed and others have been carried out by Pakistan in the past also," a foreign office statement said.
"Only a credible crackdown on the mastermind of the Mumbai terrorist attack and terrorist organisations involved in cross-border terrorism would be proof of Pakistan's sincerity."
JuD, listed as a terror outfit by the United Nations, is considered by the US and India to be a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the militant group blamed for the attack on India's financial capital which killed more than 160 people.
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