THE announcement by the US of a $10m bounty on Jamaatud Dawa leader Hafiz Saeed raises more questions than it answers. Washington links its decision to the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. The post-9/11 world has witnessed many bizarre events. But such a huge reward for targeting a man who has never attempted to hide himself and who moves about freely and addresses large crowds appears absurd. After 9/11, it took a decade for the world’s remaining superpower, with seemingly unlimited intelligence capability, to track down Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. So, how did Hafiz Saeed, who was not in hiding, get on the list?

Of the many explanations, the obvious deduction is that Washington wishes to appease New Delhi and bring more pressure to bear on Islamabad to make it amenable to its demands. There is also the view that after the ISI cracked down on CIA assets here it is now the latter agency’s turn to turn the screw on its Pakistani counterpart. Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai’s arrest in the US is also being explained in these terms, while Hafiz Saeed, too, is widely viewed as an asset of the security establishment. These arguments may be plausible, but it is also true that Pakistan has an appalling record of bringing to justice those wanted for terrorism here or abroad. The pace of the trial of those behind the Mumbai carnage is a case in point. It has been some years since the tragedy took place and Pakistan arrested some key members of the LeT as alleged perpetrators. Even though the government claimed to have sufficient evidence against them, the in-camera trial has made little progress.

Meanwhile, key figures of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (part of which later morphed into JuD) and armed militants such as Jaish-i-Mohammad ‘assets’, continue to have complete freedom of movement across the country. In this context, it is disturbing that, under the cover of the pro-establishment Difaa-i-Pakistan Council, Hafiz Saeed is being wrongly projected as a non-militant religious scholar, even though it is widely known that the outlawed LeT was created by him. Even now, most members of the banned outfit draw inspiration from his jihadi teachings. The responsibility, then, is Pakistan’s to rein in Hafiz Saeed, probe allegations of terrorism against him and to take action if he is found to be involved in cross-border militancy. For its part, America should realise that by announcing head money for someone not in hiding it is setting a dangerous precedent. It would have been wiser to apply diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to get its message across.