Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed. (File photo)

MUMBAI: Over 1,000 Muslim clerics and imams have passed a resolution against 26/11 mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed , demanding that he be punished for his anti-India activities. The resolution, passed at a gathering at Madrassa Darul Uloom Ali Hasan Ahle Sunnat in Mumbai, also denounces JuD, along with several other Pakistan-based terror outfits.

It has been sent to Amr Abdellatif Aboulatta, chair of the UN Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee at the Security Council, with a copy marked to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). “Hafiz Saeed and the terror outfits he heads are threats to global peace. He calls India enemy number one but he is the enemy of Islam and humanity,” said the chief of Mumbai-based NGO Islamic Defence Cyber Cell, Dr Abdur Rahman Anjaria, who introduced the resolution.

Anjaria had also initiated the world’s biggest fatwa against the terror outfit Islamic State in 2015, getting it signed by over 1,000 Indian Muslim clerics and imams. The fresh resolution says that around 60 terror outfits operate from Pakistan, and urges the UN to initiate action against them. Asked the reason behind passing the resolution, Maulana Mohammed Hashim Ashrafi, patron of Madrassa Darul Uloom Ali Hasan Ahle Sunnat, said Indian clerics were “morally bound to oppose those who kill or support the killing of innocents in the name of Islam”. “It has been proved beyond doubt that Hafiz Saeed instigates youths to violence. We must oppose him and the ideology he propagates,” he said. While Saeed’s JuD remains banned in Pakistan, it launched a political party, ‘Milli Muslim League (MML)’, on Monday to contest elections in Pakistan. How is Saeed’s party a threat to India, Muslims and the global community? The head of Mumbai’s Saki Naka madrassa Abdul Manzar Khan Ashrafi explained, “Pakistan is a nuclear-armed country and if people like Saeed are voted to power, he will be a bigger threat to not just India, but the world. He will try to influence Muslim opinion globally and radicalise more youths.” Mufti Mohammed Manzar Hasan Khan issued a fatwa against suicide bombing at the same meeting.

The 13-page resolution also asserts that Kashmir is an internal issue of India and no third party should interfere in it. The MML chief had said on Monday: “Kashmiri Muslims are not only fighting their war, but a war to complete the unfinished agenda of Pakistan.”

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