Hafiz Saeed condemns US' terror label, calls for protests

LAHORE: Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed has called for a countrywide protest tomorrow against the US for declaring two LeT leaders as "global terrorists".

"The US government has declared Nazir Ahmed Chaudhry and Muhammad Hussein Gill at the behest of India. We strongly condemn the decision as both elderly men are the members of JuD and not the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)," Saeed told a news conference today at the JuD headquarters here.

The US State Department yesterday amended LeT's designations to add the aliases: Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Al-Anfal Trust, Tehrik-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool and Tehrik-e-Tahafuz Qibla Awwal.

Simultaneously, the Department of the Treasury targeted the financial and leadership networks of LeT by designating Chaudhry and Gill as Specially Designated Global Terrorists. Flanked by both Chaudhry and Gill, Saeed said the JuD would defend its two members in any court of law provided the US brought forth evidence against them.

"We will hold demonstrations across the country after Friday prayer tomorrow against the US' unjust decision," he said. "The US had put a USD 10 million on me. I challenged it to prove me a terrorist in any court of law. The Pakistani courts have already absolved me and my organisation of any charges," he said.

Saeed said the US has always tried to confuse JuD with the LeT. Saeed asked the Nawaz Sharif-led government to defend its citizens instead of "pleasing the US".