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Former Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai said on Thursday, 18 January that there was "plenty of evidence" against UN-designated terrorist Hafiz Saeed, days after Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi gave a clean chit to the 2008 Mumbai attack mastermind.
The Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) is believed to be the front organisation for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) which is responsible for carrying out the 26/11 Mumbai attack that killed 166 people. It has been declared as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US in June 2014.
Abbasi, during an interview to Geo TV on Tuesday, had referred to Saeed, the chief of the JuD, as 'sahib' or 'sir'.
"There is no case against Hafiz Saeed sahib in Pakistan. Only when there is a case can there be action," the prime minister had said when asked why there was no action against Saeed.
The JuD chief was released from house arrest in Pakistan in November.
After his release, Saeed had confirmed that the JuD will contest the 2018 general election under the banner of the Milli Muslim League (MML), which is yet to be registered with Pakistan's Election Commission.
When asked about the suspension of military aid by the US to Pakistan, he said, "They should do all they can, through political, and economic and other means, to bring Pakistan to a recognition, the Pakistani Army and Intelligence, that the use of extremism as a tool, is no longer tolerated by the world."
The former Afghan president, when asked how the current Afghan government was dealing with Taliban extremism in that country, he said, "They are doing their best." Earlier taking part in a panel discussion on a topic 'Afghan Poser', he asserted that Afghanistan is a "deeply cultured society" and not what the western media portrays it to be.
"They show us (Afghanistan) as savages. If I lived in America, I will be very pessimistic about Afghanistan," he rued.
On Taliban extremism, he said:
"And, the way ahead is through development and improvement in economy," he said.
Karzai also said the Russia-Pakistan relationship is "very new" as against the US-Pakistan relationship, saying the "Russian military is not that close to Pakistan military as say the US military is".
"We want the best relationship with Pakistan. On Balochistan, I had endorsed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's views earlier and I still hold that," he added.
Karzai's comments comes on a day the National Investigation Agency (NIA) filed a charge sheet against 12 people, including Saeed, in a terror funding case.
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