ISLAMABAD, Oct 30: The founder of an Islamist group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, who is under a $10 million US bounty, on Tuesday offered humanitarian aid to the United States as it battles superstorm Sandy.

Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the founder of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant outfit and head of the charity Jamaatud Dawa, said his organisation was ready to offer every possible help to the storm-hit American people.

“Jamaatud Dawa is ready to send its volunteers, doctors, food, medicines and other relief items on humanitarian grounds if the US government allows us,” Hafiz Saeed said in a statement.

It said the charity had carried out relief work in Indonesia and Sri Lanka after the Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004.

“America may have any opinion about us, it may fix bounties on our heads but as followers of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), we feel it is our Islamic duty to help Americans trapped in a catastrophe.”

Jamaatud Dawa 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 Hafiz Saeed.

Jamaatud Dawa 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.

Hafiz Saeed was put under house arrest a month after the Mumbai attacks, but was released in 2009 and in 2010 the Supreme Court upheld his release on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to detain him.—AFP