US ordered ban on JuD coverage ban: Hafiz Mohammad Saeed

Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Mohammad Saeed on Sunday criticised the Nawaz Sharif government for banning the coverage of his Jamat-ud-Dawah (JuD) in Pakistani media, claiming that it was under the direction of the United States that such a step was taken.

“The order to ban the JuD (on media) has not come from Islamabad but from Washington,” he said in a statement issued here.

The Pakistan electronic media regulatory authority on November 2 had restrained all Pakistani television channels from “all kinds of coverage” of the JuD, its front Falah-e- Insaniat Foundation and about 60 other proscribed organisations and their leaders.

The 66-year-old — who orchestrated the 2008 Mumbai terror attack in which 166 people were killed but roams around freely in Pakistan — also questioned the “liberal agenda” that Mr Sharif is trying to “impose” in Pakistan for which he is being praised in the Western media, in an apparent reference to a recent Washington Post article.

The Post had praised Mr Sharif for his liberal agenda, saying the “shift in tone can be traced to Sharif’s ambitious economic agenda, the influence his 42-year-old daughter (Maryam Nawaz) has over him, and his awareness that Pakistan remains the butt of jokes, according to his friends, senior government officials and analysts”.