india

Updated: May 15, 2019 14:34 IST

The brother-in-law of Mumbai terror attack mastermind and proscribed Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed has been arrested for hate speech and criticising the Pakistan government, police said on Wednesday.

Abdul Rehman Makki, head of JuD’s political and international affairs wing and in-charge of its charity Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), was arrested during a government crackdown against the outlawed organisations, Geo News reported, quoting an Interior Ministry source.

Makki has been arrested under the Maintenance of Public Order Act, Punjab Police said.

He is accused of hate speech against the crackdown and criticising steps taken by the government under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) guidelines, the report said.

The US Department of the Treasury has designated Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and the US, since 2012, has offered a USD 10 million reward for information that brings him to justice.

In February, Paris-based international terror financing watchdog FATF decided to continue the ‘Grey’ listing of Pakistan for its failure to stop funding of terrorist groups such as the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the JuD.

The Pakistan government has launched a crackdown against the outlawed organisations under the National Action Plan 2015 to eliminate militancy and extremism from the country’s soil.

The Imran Khan-led government has also announced the freezing of accounts and seizure of assets linked to organisations banned by the UN Security Council.

The government banned 11 organisations for having links with the proscribed outifts JuD), FIF and JeM on Saturday.

After the February 14 Pulwama terror attack, in which 40 Indian security personnel were killed by a suicide bomber of the Pakistan-based JeM, prime minister Khan had said Islamabad would not spare any group involved in militancy or using Pakistani soil for any kind of terror activity against other countries.

The FIF, like the JuD, was also banned in March by the Pakistan government.

Recently, the government announced to take control of more than 30,000 religious seminaries.

The JuD is believed to be the front organisation for the LeT which is responsible for carrying out the Mumbai attack that killed 166 people. It had been declared as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US in June 2014.

(The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text, only the headline has been changed).