Hafiz Saeed
Hafiz Muhammad Saeed is a Pakistani militant and religious preacher convicted of terrorism. He co-founded Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based Islamist militant organization that is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, India, the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, and Russia.
In July 2019, three months before the scheduled reviewal of Pakistan's action plan by the Financial Action Task Force, Saeed was arrested by Pakistani authorities and sentenced to an 11-year prison sentence. In early April 2022, he was sentenced an additional 31 years for terror financing.
The Pakistan Army claimed to have jailed him, but Indian media found him housed in a military-protected residence in the centre of Lahore with a private park, vehicles, a mosque, a madrasa, and additional bodyguards.
Early life and education
Hafiz Saeed was born on June 5, 1950, in Sargodha, Punjab to a Punjabi family belonging to the Muslim Gujjar community. As told by him, his father, Maulana Kamal-ud-Din, a religious scholar, landlord and farmer, along with his family started migrating from Ambala and Hisar, East Punjab and reached Pakistan in around four months in the autumn of 1947.He was named hafiz because he memorized the Qur'an during his childhood, his mother having impulsed him to do so when he was nine, a time during which he was already enthusiastic about the verses on jihad and also took interest in sports such as football and kabbadi. He then attended the Government College Sargodha before getting a Master's in Islamic Studies at the King Saud University in Riyadh.
A major early influence on his life and ideology was his maternal uncle, and later father-in-law, Hafiz Abdullah Bahawalpuri, who was a famed theologian belonging to the Salafi Ahl-i Hadith, who held that democracy was incompatible with Islam and argued, on the importance of jihad, "that only in jihad does one offer one's life in the way of Allah, which elevates it to a higher plane than merely fulfilling other religious responsibilities such as saying prayers and paying zakat, also entailing sacrifices and adjustments, but not at the scale evident in jihad" and "considered shahadat to be the
crux of jihad." Bahawalpuri's only son, Abdul Rehman Makki, is Saeed's brother-in-law and has been described as "his close partner."
General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq appointed Saeed to the Council on Islamic Ideology, and he later served as an Islamic Studies teacher at the University of Engineering and Technology, Pakistan. He was sent to Saudi Arabia in the early 1980s by the university for higher studies where he met Saudi sheikhs who were taking part in the Soviet–Afghan War. They inspired him in taking an active role supporting the mujahideen in Afghanistan. During his studies at the King Saud University, where he was gold medalist for his academic performances as well as taught there, he came under the influence of Salafi scholars like al-Uthaymin and Ibn Baz.
Saeed held two master's degrees from the University of Punjab and a specialisation in Islamic Studies and Arabic Language from King Saud University.
Personal life
Saeed's father ran a grocery store before receiving farmland from the government while his mother opened a madrasa. Three of his brothers, Hafiz Hamid, Hafiz Mastodon and Hafiz Hannan, are involved in Islamic activism as well, having previously run Islamic centres in Boston in the United States.Saeed's son Hafiz Talha Saeed serves as the Lashkar-e-Taiba second-in-command. He controls the finances of Lashkar. In 2019, Talha escaped an assassination attempt when a bomb inside a refrigerator shop exploded in Lahore. For the 2018 Pakistani general election, Saeed fielded his son, Hafiz Talha, and son-in-law, Khalid Waleed, as candidates but due to the Election Commission of Pakistan's denial of registration to the Milli Muslim League, the political wing of JuD, the candidates contested under the banner of the Allah-o-Akbar Tehreek, a lesser-known platform.
Militancy career
1987
In 1987, Saeed, along with Abdullah Azzam, Prof.Zafar Iqbal Sardar founded Markaz Dawa-Wal-Irshad, a group with roots in the Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadis. This organisation spawned the jihadist group Lashkar-e-Taiba in 1987. Lashkar's primary target is the Indian-administered territory of Jammu and Kashmir.1994
In 1994, Saeed visited the United States and "spoke at Islamic centres in Houston, Chicago and Boston".2001–2002
Pakistan took Saeed into custody on 21 December 2001 due to an Indian government assertion that he was involved in the 13 December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament. He was held until 31 March 2002, released, then taken back into custody on 15 May. He was placed under house arrest on 31 October 2002 after his wife Maimoona Saeed sued the province of Punjab and the Pakistan federal government for what she claimed was an illegal detention.2006
After the 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings, the provincial government of Punjab, Pakistan arrested him on 9 August 2006 and kept him under house arrest but he was released on 28 August 2006 after a Lahore High Court order. He was arrested again on the same day by the provincial government and was kept in the Canal Rest House in Sheikhupura. He was finally released after the Lahore High Court order on 17 October 2006.2008–2009
After the 2008 Mumbai attacks, India submitted a formal request to the UN Security Council to put the group Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Saeed on the list of individuals and organisations sanctioned by the United Nations for association with terrorism. India has accused the organisation and its leader, Saeed, of being virtually interchangeable with Lashkar-e-Taiba. India said that the close links between the organisations, as well as the 2,500 offices and 11 seminaries that Jamaat-ud-Dawa maintains in Pakistan, "are of immediate concern with regard to their efforts to mobilise and orchestrate terrorist activities." On 10 December 2008, Saeed denied a link between LeT and JuD in an interview with Pakistan's Geo television stating that "no Lashkar-e-Taiba man is in Jamaat-ud-Dawa and I have never been a chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba."On 11 December 2008, Hafiz Muhammed Saeed was again placed under house arrest when the United Nations declared Jamaat-ud-Dawa to be an LeT front. Saeed was held in house arrest under the Maintenance of Public Order law, which allows authorities to detain temporarily individuals deemed likely to create disorder, until early June 2009 when the Lahore High Court, deeming the containment to be unconstitutional, ordered Saeed to be released. India quickly expressed its disappointment with the decision.
On 6 July 2009, the Pakistani government filed an appeal of the court's decision. Deputy Attorney General Shah Khawar told the Associated Press that "Hafiz Saeed at liberty is a security threat."
On 25 August 2009, Interpol issued a red notice against Saeed, along with Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, in response to Indian requests for his extradition.
Saeed was again placed under house arrest by the Pakistani authorities in September 2009.
On 12 October 2009, the Lahore High Court quashed all cases against Saeed and set him free. The court also notified that Jama'at-ud-Da'wah is not a banned organisation and can work freely in Pakistan. Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, one of two judges hearing the case, observed "In the name of terrorism we cannot brutalise the law."
Indian attempts at extradition
On 11 May 2011, in an effort to place pressure on Pakistan, India publicly revealed a list of its 50 most wanted fugitives hiding in Pakistan. India believes Saeed is a fugitive, but the Indian arrest warrant had no influence in Pakistan and presently has no effect on Saeed's movements within Pakistan. Following the Lahore High Court ruling, Saeed has been moving freely around the country. For many years, India has demanded that Saeed be handed over but there is no extradition treaty between the two countries. On 29 December 2023, India formally requested extradition of Hafiz Saeed for his involvement in 2008 Mumbai AttacksIn July 2025, Pakistan’s former Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari stated that Islamabad had no objection to extraditing “individuals of concern” to India, including figures like Hafiz Saeed, as a confidence-building measure provided New Delhi reciprocates cooperation. The remarks, made during an interview with Al Jazeera, came amid heightened regional tensions and mounting internal and international pressure on Pakistan following India’s Operation Sindoor. Analysts viewed the statement as a rare acknowledgment of the threat such individuals pose not only to regional stability but also to Pakistan’s own internal security and global standing.