Pakistan put the founder of a militant group blamed for the Mumbai attacks under house arrest yesterday.
The detention of Hafiz Saeed, the founder of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group who now runs the Jamaat-ud-Dawa charity seen as its front, came after the United Nations placed him on its terrorism sanctions list.
"Police have encircled the house of Hafiz Saeed in Lahore and told him he cannot go out of the home. They have told him detention orders will be formally served to him shortly," Saeed's spokesman Abdullah Montazir said.
Saeed founded Lashkar in 1990 and officially left it in 2001 just days before Pakistan banned it. Pakistan also shut offices and arrested scores of activists belonging to the Islamic charity.
India blames LeT for the Mumbai attacks that killed 179 people last month and also for earlier ones, including a 2001 assault on parliament that nearly thrust the nuclear-armed south Asian rivals into their fourth war since independence from Britain in 1947.
A spokesman for Pakistan's central bank said directives had been issued to banks to freeze the accounts of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Saeed and three associates included in the UN sanctions, which also impose a travel ban on the blacklisted individuals.
Police in Karachi and Hyderabad sealed the offices of Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Television reports said the charity would be banned, although no official announcement had yet been made as yet.
But Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Pakistan's efforts had not been enough. He was speaking to parliament before the lower house passed a largely symbolic resolution condemning the attacks and pledging to find those responsible.
Reuters
