Hafiz Saeed offers US storm aid
Jamat-ud-Dawa founder Hafiz Saeed- File Photo
ISLAMABAD: The founder of a Pakistan-based group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, who is under a $10 million US bounty, Tuesday offered humanitarian aid to the United States as it battles superstorm Sandy.
Sandy hammered the eastern United States early Tuesday, flooding much of New York City, hitting several states with heavy winds and torrential rain and leaving at least 14 people dead.
Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the founder of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant outfit and now head of the charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), said his organisation was ready to offer every possible help to the storm-hit American people.
“Jamaat-ud-Dawa is ready to send its volunteers, doctors, food, medicines and other relief items on humanitarian grounds if the US government allows us,”Saeed said in a statement.
“America may have any opinion about us, it may fix bounties on our heads but as followers of the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed, we feel it is our Islamic duty to help Americans trapped in a catastrophe.”Saeed’s statement said the charity had carried out relief work in Indonesia and Sri Lanka after the Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004.
JuD is seen as a front for LeT, which Washington and Delhi blame for the commando-style attacks on India’s financial capital in 2008 that killed 166 people.
In April the United States offered $10 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Saeed, who lives openly in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore.
Saeed’s charity has long denied terror accusations and is known around Pakistan for its relief work in the wake of the devastating Kashmir earthquake of 2005 and the floods of 2010, which were the worst in the country’s history.
He was put under house arrest a month after the Mumbai attacks, but was released in 2009 and in 2010 as Pakistan’s highest court upheld his release on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to detain him.
Last month Saeed led a number of protests in Lahore against a US-made anti-Islam film.
The way you guys talking, may i request and know, what role have played by the commenters for the poor and needy people of their own countries, particularly, i mention those who talk against Hafiz Saeed. If Hafiz Saeed instead of the said offer, make a worse offer for the people of USA. Then, polytheist people will use more offensive words…keep cool and think positive!!!!
He has no feelings for the people of Pakistan who have been ‘trapped in a catastrophe’ of poverty and now extremism, yet he feels for people in the western world whose governments are perfectly capable of looking after them. Perhaps he is an American agent.
A beggar offering a rich man who has been offering him arms for years…good joke..
US should divert $10 million bounty on the head of Hafiz Saeed for helping the storm-hit American people.
what a saint he is….
I have heard talibans also made similar offer..??
Hi Mr. Saeed,
The US would be very delighted to hear the offer from a person who has been actively involved in the killing of their own counrtymen. Please note that this new role does not suit you at all. You just continue with what you are good at i.e. be on the path to destroy whatever that may come in your way (right, left & centre).
Bravo!! America wont lift bounty from you Mr Saeed so please do something for your own people who are suffering natural disasters and government tortures.
Hafiz Saeed and humanitarianism is like oil and water. He should just stick to blowing up innocent people in the name of …..
They have the guts to offer humanitarian aid!!!