Hafiz Saeed can pose a serious threat to Pakistan: Defence Minister

February 21, 2017

Lahore, Feb 21: Pakistan has said Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, who has been listed under an anti-terrorism law, can pose a "serious threat" to the nation, and was thus placed under house arrest in the country's "larger interest". The acknowledgement of the danger the Mumbai attacks mastermind poses came from Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif during an international security conference in Munich, Germany.

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"Saeed can pose a serious threat to the society," Asif told the audience at the Munich Security Conference on Sunday, The Nation reported. Saeed was "arrested in the larger interest of the country", he added, according to the report. Saeed was placed under house arrest under the fourth schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) on January 30 in Lahore, provoking an uproar from his party and allies. Saeed's inclusion in the list shows he is linked with militancy in some way. Saeed was earlier this month put on the Exit Control List, barring him from leaving the country.

During a panel discussion on countering extremism and terrorism, Asif said: "Terrorism is not synonymous to any religion. Terrorists aren't Christians or Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus. They are terrorists, they are criminals." The action against Saeed was taken after Pakistan was hit by at least eight terror attacks this month in which more than 100 people died, the latest being a suicide bombing on a famed Sufi shrine in Sindh province that claimed 88 lives.

Saeed was also put under house arrest after the Mumbai terror attacks in November 2008 in which 166 people died, but he was freed by a court in 2009. He carries a reward of USD 10 million announced by the US for his role in terror activities. In a statement critical of the American policies, Asif said Pakistan is determined to fight terrorism: "Let me assure the world community that Pakistan is a frontline state in this war and it will continue to fulfil its obligations to its own people and the international community but if the West's policies are going to be isolationist it won't help the fight against terrorism, only fuel it."

Comments

dodanna
 - 
Tuesday, 21 Feb 2017

What a surprise, after a long period Pakistani authority able to understand about hafiz saeed and his followers. Over all now the water is moving above their knee so no way agreed to accept their support and involvement in all terrorist attack against their mighty neighbor.

Ok Dher Hai Durusth Hai - hope Sudarjayange.

Jai Hind !

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News Network
November 18,2024

Advisors to US President-elect Donald Trump have instructed his allies and associates to refrain from using the inflammatory language they previously employed when discussing issues related to migrants and the deportation of asylum seekers, in a bid to avoid “looking like Nazis.”

US media reports said that Trump’s associates had been asked to stop using the word “camps” to describe potential facilities that would be used to accommodate migrants rounded up in deportation operations across the country.

The reports said the US president-elect’s allies had been ordered to stave off such charged terms as they would bring to mind “Nazis,” and be used against Trump.

“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” one Trump ally told American monthly magazine Rolling Stone.

“Apparently, some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”

The presidential advisers also cautioned surrogates and allies to keep racist terms, which have dogged Trump’s campaign, out of their remarks.

They said with Trump’s heated rhetoric that used to compare undocumented immigrants to “animals” and his slight that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” detractors did not need to reach too far to find parallels to Nazi Germany.

Stephen Miller, who Trump tapped to be his deputy chief of staff of policy, specifically used the word “camps” to describe holding facilities that he hoped the military could put together for immigrants.

Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is chosen by Trump to be in charge of the US borders, was no stranger to such language.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”

Becoming a little more forthright about the new government’s aggressive deportation plans, Homan likened the early days of the Trump administration to the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“I got three words for them – shock and awe,” he said. “You’re going to see us take this country back.”

Trump made immigration a central element of his 2024 presidential campaign but unlike his first run, which was mainly focused on building a border wall, he has shifted his attention to interior enforcement and the removal of undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

People close to the US president and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise.

The businessman-turned-politician deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term.

The figure do not include the millions of people turned away at the border under a Covid-era policy enacted by Trump and used during most of Biden’s term.

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