No extradition request with MEA for Dawood, Hafiz Saeed: RTI query

New Delhi: The Ministry of External Affairs has said that it has not received any request so far to extradite 26/11 Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed and 1993 Mumbai bombings accused Dawood Ibrahim from the agencies probing them.

The ministry was responding to an RTI query seeking to know the action taken by the government to bring back fugitive gangster Ibrahim and Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Saeed.

“The ministry of external affairs has not received any request for extradition/deportation/return in respect of Hafiz Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim from the investigating agency concerned in India,” it said.

Ibrahim is the main accused in the 1993 serial bomb blasts case in Mumbai in which around 260 people were killed, and more than 700 suffered injuries. He fled the country post the bombings and is understood to be hiding in Pakistan at present.

Saeed, also the co-founder of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group, is accused of plotting the militant attack in Mumbai on November 26, 2008, in which 166 people were killed by a group of terrorists who had entered the city through a sea route.

In April, Home Minister Rajnath Singh had stated that there was no doubt that Dawood was still in Pakistan. During the last 10 years, India has sent several dossiers to Pakistan in this regard, saying Ibrahim is accused in the serial bomb blasts case.

In 2011, P Chidambaram, the then home minister in the UPA government had also stated that Ibrahim was based in Karachi.

He had also said that India would continue to push its case to bring to justice the people who had planned the 2008 attack.

India has for long been advocating an extradition treaty between SAARC countries in order to ensure quick action against those involved in terrorist activities.