Ahead of Zardari visit, India ups pressure over Hafiz Saeed

Apr 04, 2012 |

New Delhi

Tags:

Bolstered by the US unveiling a US$10 million bounty for the capture of the Mumbai terror mastermind Hafiz Saeed, India is expected to up pressure for action against the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) chief when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meets Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday.

Zardari is in India on a ‘private’ visit to the Ajmer shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti. He is expected to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at his 7, Race Course Road residence prior to his trip to Ajmer.

Welcoming the announcement, external affairs minister S.M. Krishna on Tuesday said it “reflects the commitment of India and the US to bring perpetrators of the Mumbai terrorist attacks to justice and continuing efforts to combat terrorism”.

India has, for long, been asking Pakistan to arrest and take action against the Jammat ud Dawa chief and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba founder.

While Union home minister P. Chidambaram has accused Pakistan of being “in denial mode” on restricting the terror suspect’s freedom of movement despite submitting exhaustive dossiers on his anti-India invective, both sides are keen not to let the long-standing terror issue affect a feel-good visit.

‘US is frustrated’

The JuD chief lashed out at news of his bounty, appearing to mock the US, telling the Al Jazeera news channel, “We are not hiding in caves for bounties to be set on finding us.”

“I think the US is frustrated because we are taking our countrywide protests against the resumption of NATO supplies and drone strikes. I believe the US has very little knowledge and is basing its decisions on information provided by India.”

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/139954" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-4d8aa87d4001ba3d51cab9131c2b098d" value="form-4d8aa87d4001ba3d51cab9131c2b098d" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80556997" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>