Three JuD activists arrested in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir

LAHORE: Three suspected members of proscribed outfit Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) were arrested in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on Thursday, on charges of terror financing. The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD), in a statement, said an 'intelligence-based operation' was taken up by its Punjab wing in Muzaffargarh (PoK), about 400 km from Lahore.

The statement said that two activists of the Hafiz Saeed-founded organisation were picked on terror financing charges. "They were collecting and arranging funds for proscribed organisation Jamaat-ud-Dawah. On this information, the CTD team raided the place and arrested the two activists namely Wajidullah and Muhammad Ali," it said.

Terror financing pamphlets and receipt books were recovered from them. "Investigation has been launched and further disclosures are expected regarding JuD and FIF (Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation) networks in the area," the CTD said.

The FIF is a related organisation of the JuD, also founded by Saeed. Meanwhile, an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan indicted four leaders of the JuD in terror financing cases. In February, Saeed had been sentenced to jail for 11 years on terror finance charges by the Lahore Anti-Terrorism Court under sections 11-N of Anti-Terrorism Act 1997.

The ATC had sentenced the 2008 Mumbai terror attack mastermind and his close aide Zafar Iqbal to five-and-a-half years each in two cases. A total of 11 years sentence running concurrently. Saeed is serving time in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail. He was arrested in July last year.

The ATC Lahore had also handed down over 16 years imprisonment to Saeed's close aides professor Zafar Iqbal and Hafiz Abdus Salam bin Muhammad and one-and-a-half-years sentence to professor Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki (brother-in-law of Saeed) in another terror financing case.

The CTD of Punjab police had registered 23 FIRs against Saeed and his accomplices on the charges of terror financing in different cities of the province. Hafiz Saeed-led JuD is the front organisation for Lashkar-e-Toiba which is responsible for carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people, including six Americans.

The US has already named Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. Since 2012, the US has offered USD10 million reward for information that brings Saeed to justice.