Terming the meeting between Indian journalist Ved Pratap Vaidik and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) leader Hafiz Saeed as an interaction between “two private individuals”, Pakistan High Commissioner in New Delhi Abdul Basit denied his Government facilitated this meeting. Basit claimed Pakistan Government had no prior knowledge of this meeting.
Basit also argued that Pakistani Government considers Saeed as a private citizen and it will not push him into jail to appease the world. The Pakistani government wants “hard evidence” against him to act upon.
Saeed is one of India’s most wanted and is the mastermind of the deadly 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. But the Pakistani High Commissioner disagreed that Saeed was a terrorist roaming freely in Pakistan, even though he was a fugitive for India and United States of America. Basit argued that people may term Saeed as a militant but Pakistan cannot put its private citizens in jail just to appease the world without hard evidences.
“We had detained and questioned him. But we found no evidences against him. If anyone has any hard evidence against him they can give it to us, we will take action. We cannot push our private citizens behind bars just to appease the world. If USA has put a bounty on his head, we cannot punish him,” Basit said. He said Pakistan itself has suffered a lot because of terrorism and referred to World Bank report which put the financial loss to the country at $100 billion in the last 10 years.
On the meeting between Vaidik and Saeed, Basit said: “Our Government was not aware of this meeting, and nor was the Government of India. It was a meeting between two private individuals and nothing more. We were not in the loop of the meeting between him and Hafiz Saeed. Even High Commissioner of India said that he wasn’t aware of this meeting,” Basit said. He refused to talk whether Pakistani intelligence agency ISI too was not aware about this meeting. “I don’t know who arranged this meeting,” he said.
Basit’s statement came a day after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told Parliament Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad was not aware of this meeting. The Indian government said that Vaidik went to Pakistan in his personal capacity and met Saeed also in his personal capacity.
Saeed is wanted in India for being mastermind of 26/11 Mumbai terror attack in 2008. He was the chief of lashkar-e-Tayyeba which carried out the attacks. But later Saeed floated a new group JuD, believed to be a front for leT. United States of America recently put a bounty of $10m on his head. Though Pakistan had arrested some leT leaders including Seed after the Mumbai attacks, most of them, including Saeed, were later freed for lack of concrete evidence.