Hafiz Saeed Case: No Bilateral Extradition Treaty, Pakistan Reminds India

New Delhi: Pakistan can’t oblige India by extraditing Hafiz Saeed.

Rawalpindi confirmed receiving a request from Indian government seeking the extradition of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder. However, Pakistan reminded India that there was no bilateral extradition treaty between the two countries.

The 2008 Mumbai attack mastermind and a UN-proscribed terrorist Hafiz Saeed is wanted by Indian probe agencies in several terror cases.

Pakistani media quoted Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch as saying that her country had received a request from Indian authorities about Saeed’s extradition in a “so-called money laundering case”.

But, she added that “it is pertinent to note that no bilateral extradition treaty exists between Pakistan and India.”

Despite the absence of bilateral extradition pact between the two nations, people familiar with the matter said extradition is possible even in the absence of such a framework pact, reported PTI.

It now remains to be seen how the Narendra Modi government responds on this matter.

A hardline cleric who is also the chief of Jamaat ud Dawa, Saeed was arrested in July 2019 by Pakistan’s Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) after 23 FIRs were registered against him and his close associates.

The UN-designated terrorist was handed a combined sentence of 33-year imprisonment in April 2022 by a Pakistani anti-terrorism court in two cases of terror financing.

Saeed is one of India’s most wanted terrorists and carries a $10 million bounty placed by the US for his alleged involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks which killed 166 people over four days on November 26, 2008.