Hafiz Saeed warns Pakistan government over Kashmir issue

LAHORE: JuD chief and Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed today warned Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif against extending a hand of friendship to India under international pressure and without taking on board the Kashmiri people.

"Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif should not think about one-sided friendship with India. Any such step will hurt the Kashmiris," Saeed said.

The Pakistani government should not hold talks with India without taking the Kashmiri people on board, he said.

"Pakistan must not come under pressure from the international community over the Kashmir issue and stick to its principled stance," he said in a statement.

The warning by Saeed came after a meeting between prime ministers of India and Pakistan in the Russian city of Ufa on the sidelines of the SCO Summit on July 10, where the two leaders decided to revive the stalled dialogue process and expedite the trial of the Mumbai attack case.

The founder of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group, which carried out the audacious 2008 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people, advised the Sharif government to better become an "advocate" of Kashmiri people instead of extending a hand of friendship to India.

Saeed, who has a USD 10 million US government bounty against him, is the chief of Jammat-ud-Dawah (JuD) - a terror outfit listed by the UN but operates freely across Pakistan.