26/11 mastermind Saeed freely roaming, preaching in Pakistan

The alleged mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks in which more than 179 people died was openly spotted in Lahore delivering the Friday sermon to thousands of people at the Jamia al-Qadsia mosque.

London, Nov 21 : The alleged mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks in which more than 179 people died was openly spotted in Lahore delivering the Friday sermon to thousands of people at the Jamia al-Qadsia mosque.

The chief of terror outfit Lashakar-e-Taiba, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, is neither in hiding nor in jail.

"God has promised to make Muslims a superpower if we follow the right path," Saeed told his followers.

"Our rulers are the slave of America and have sold their conscience for a few dollars," The Times quoted the founder of LeT, as saying.

Meanwhile, US Ambassador to India Timothy Roemer has backed Indian calls this week for Pakistan to bring Saeed and six other Mumbai terror suspects to justice.

"We need to see actions and results from Pakistan," he said after India handed Pakistan a seventh dossier of evidence on the Mumbai terror attacks.

The real problem lies with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which backed Saeed when he founded LeT in 1990 to fight India in Jammu and Kashmir, according to analysts.

Under pressure from the US, Pakistan banned the group in 2002, but it continued to operate under the banner of Jamaat-ud Dawa, which Saeed also founded and calls a charity organisation.

A UN Security Council resolution last December declared Jamaat-ud Dawa a front for Lashkar-e-Toiba, forcing Pakistan to freeze its assets and jail many of its activists.

Saeed was put under house detention, but released after a few months when a court ruled that action against him and his group was illegal.

ANI