Interpol issues Red Corner notice against Hafiz Saeed
The notice will make it difficult for Pakistan to let the dreaded chief of JuD roam freely.
Earlier, government sources said that the CBI, which acts as the nodal agency for all dealings with Interpol, has already written to the world police body, based on the 26/11 chargesheet, to get an RCN issued against Saeed who was let off by the Lahore High Court as Islamabad didn't press charges against him.
Interpol issues an RCN against any accused after it receives all information and evidence against him from the country in which the crime has been committed.
"The RCN will be issued on the basis of the non-bailable warrant issued against Saeed by a Mumbai court earlier and also all the evidences gathered against him by the Mumbai police. These have been handed over to the CBI to let the agency take up the case with Interpol,'' said a source to Times Now.
While Saeed is known for his venomous utterances against India for several years, 26/11 is the first time his name has featured in a chargesheet. According to the evidence provided by India to Pakistan, Saeed motivated terrorists to attack Mumbai and was also involved in their training.
The Mumbai police have said that Saeed was among the 35 people who provided training to all the terrorists who executed 26/11 between 2007-08 at Muridke, Manshera, Muzzafarabad, Azizabad and other places in PoK.
Ajmal Kasab, in fact, had admitted in his confession before the Mumbai police that Saeed personally saw the terrorists off in Karachi a few days before the Mumbai attacks. Pakistan has defended its refusal to act against Saeed by saying that India has not given evidence against him. This slim dossier which was delivered to Pakistan on Friday focuses on Saeed's role in 26/11 and emphasises Saeed being officially declared terrorist by UN Security Council should be strong enough reason for Pakistan to nail him.
In keeping with India's bid to keep the pressure going on Pakistan, foreign minister S M Krishna on Saturday said that India will keep providing more evidence on 26/11 to Pakistan. "As and when, we collect more evidence we will keep sending it across to Pakistan and that is what the foreign secretary did yesterday,'' Krishna said. Sources said that a Blue Corner Notice, which is meant to collect additional information about a person's identity and activities in relation to a crime, was already in place against Saeed. The RCN, once issued, can prevent Saeed from moving out of Pakistan.
An RCN, however, is not an international arrest warrant and Interpol cannot force Pakistan to arrest Saeed. India had earlier managed to get an RCN issued against Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar but it could not force Pakistan take any tangible action against him. There are some countries though which look upon an RCN as a valid warrant for provisional arrest, especially if the accused caught is wanted by a country with which it has an extradition treaty.
According to Interpol, RCN is issued in two types of cases; the first type is based on an arrest warrant and is issued for a person wanted for prosecution and the second is based on a court decision for a person wanted to serve a sentence. Saeed was placed under house arrest by Pakistan in December after the UN Security Council Taliban and al-Qaida sanctions committee banned JuD in December 2008 and declared Saeed a terrorist.
The Lahore High Court, however, let Saeed off in June citing the fact that no evidence had been provided by the government to justify his detention. The Punjab government later backtracked from its statement that it would challenge his release in the Supreme Court. The Punjab law minister, Rana Sanaullah Khan, had then made the startling confession that the federal government had not shared the "confidential evidence'' it had with the state government.
