Pakistan has once again failed in its counter-terrorism commitment to the international community, as a country's court on November 7 freed six terrorists including those who were the masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack.
According to the Inside Over, those freed were identified as Prof Malik Zafar Iqbal, Nasrullah, Samiullah, Yahya Mujahid, Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki and Umar Bahadur. With the exception of Makki, all five terrorists were sentenced to nine years imprisonment.
In this case, the six were mentored by Hafiz Saeed, the United Nations designated terrorist who is the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and its charity wing, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD). Saeed has been convicted and freed many times and whenever he has become vocal about the inconvenience of the government, placed under house arrest.
It's expected that the terrorist groups in Pakistan change the names of their organizations to escape scrutiny and contest claims as the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Organization has started to increase their scrutiny.
Earlier, in April this year, a New York-based Artificial Intelligence start-up had revealed that Pakistan has silently removed the names of almost 4,000 terrorists from its terror watch list. The removed names include LeT leader and Mumbai attack mastermind Zakir ur Rehman Lakhvi and many others.
According to the Inside Over, the Artificial Intelligence start-up Castellum has revealed that the Financial Action Task Force(FATF) that in October 2018 the country's terror watchlist had 7,600 names.
Subsequently, it noted that between March 9 and 27 data showed that Pakistan removed 1,069 names from the Proscribed person List and all those names appeared on the country's de-notified list.
On the other hand, in 2020, the United Nations committee had allowed Hafiz Saeed to use his bank account to help his family. The UN Committee said that with no objections being raised to Pakistan's request for Hafiz Saeed's basic expenses, the Chair has approved the appeal.
Earlier, Hafiz Saeed's bank accounts were frozen by the Pakistani government complying with the UNSC resolution.
( With inputs from ANI )
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