New Delhi, August 24: The CBI will soon approach the Interpol seeking a Red Corner Notice against the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba Hafiz Muhammad Saeed for masterminding the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.
Mumbai under attackThe investigating agency has collected all the papers from Mumbai Police which include the non-bailable warrants issued by trial court against Pakistan-based Saeed. The warrant will become the basis for seeking the Red Corner Notice from the Interpol.
“The interpol may issue a Red Corner Notice, once CBI approaches it with a request. The agency will soon approach the Interpol with the request for the notice,” sources in the investigating agency said today.
Non-bailable warrants were issued by a Mumbai Court on June 23 against Saeed and 22 others, including LeT operations commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and suspected military official Col R Saadat Ullah, for allegedly hatching a conspiracy to carry out the November 26, 2008 terror strikes.
Special judge ML Tahaliyani had issued the warrants asking the Mumbai police commissioner and the CBI director to execute them through the Interpol and produce the absconders before the court soon.
Saeed had allegedly provided training to terrorists between 2007 and 2008-end at Muridke (LeT headquarters), Manshera, Muzzafarabad, Azizabad, Paanch Teni in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
In December last year, UN Security Council has placed sanctions on Jamaat-ud-Dawa, front organisation of banned LeT, declaring it a terrorist outfit, and labelled Saeed and Lakhvi as terrorists.
Imposing the sanctions, the Council had asked all member States to freeze their assets and imposed travel ban and arms embargo against them.
The decision was taken by the Council’s sanctions committee on al-Qaeda and Taliban which put JuD and the four individuals on the Consolidated List of persons and entities connected with the al-Qaeda and Taliban.
Besides Sayeed and Lakhvi, two other top leaders of Lashkar-e-Toiba — Haji Muhammad Ashraf and Zaki-ur-Bahaziq — have also been declared as terrorists by the UNSC.
India had sought a ban on JuD after LeT was blamed for the terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
The United States had sought a ban on Lakhvi, operations leader of LeT who is suspected to have planned the Mumbai attacks, Ashraf, a JuD financier, and Bahaziq, an Indian-born Saudi who was suspected of collecting funds for the banned organisations in Saudi Arabia.
–PTI