LAHORE, PAKISTAN // Pakistani police plan to arrest a hard line cleric accused by India in the Mumbai terror attacks on charges of raising funds for the banned group he leads, a senior officer said today.
Hafiz Muhammad Saeed said his Jamaat-ud-Dawa is a charity that helps victims of natural disasters and the poor. Pakistan banned the group after a UN resolution declared it was a front for the terrorist group Lashkar-i-Taiba, which India and the United States believes carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Police officer Mohammed Tahir said today that two criminal cases had been filed against Mr Saeed because he illegally held a public gathering and raised funds for Jamaat-ud-Dawa in the city of Faisalabad in Punjab province last month.
"We will definitely arrest him," Mr Tahir said. A spokesman for Mr Saeed said he had yet to be arrested and that he planned to consult with lawyers. Lashkar, which Mr Saeed helped establish in the late 1980s, is accused of sending the teams of gunmen that rampaged through Mumbai last November in an attack on luxury hotels, a busy train station and other sites.
The three-day siege left 166 people dead. Pakistan arrested Mr Saeed in December after India provided a dossier of evidence in a rare sharing of intelligence. But in June, a Pakistani court freed Mr Saeed from house arrest, saying there was not enough evidence to hold him. India maintains he played a role in the attacks and has called on Pakistan to arrest him.
Lashkar is widely believed to have enjoyed the support of elements of Pakistan's security agencies in the 1980s and 1990s because it was sending militants to fight Indian-rule in Kashmir, which Pakistan also claims.
Experts have said history complicates efforts to prosecute Mr Saeed now. India and Pakistan have fought three wars since they were formed in 1947. The Mumbai attacks raised tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations and froze a slow-moving talks aimed at normalising their ties.
Pakistani and Indian border guards exchanged fire late yesterday along the frontier in eastern Punjab province, said Pakistan Rangers spokesman Nadeem Raza, who claimed the exchange was initiated from the Indian side. No one was reported injured in the incident.
Last week, India said three rockets fired from Pakistan landed on its side of the border in Punjab state. No one was injured in the attack. Mr Raza denied that charge at the time. Cross border firing incidents have become rarer since a 2003 ceasefire in the Kashmir region, but still occasionally happen. Incidents in Punjab are very rare, but there was no sign that Thursday's had raised tensions between the two countries.
* AP
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- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
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- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
COMPANY PROFILE
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Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
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Three-day coronation
Royal purification
The entire coronation ceremony extends over three days from May 4-6, but Saturday is the one to watch. At the time of 10:09am the royal purification ceremony begins. Wearing a white robe, the king will enter a pavilion at the Grand Palace, where he will be doused in sacred water from five rivers and four ponds in Thailand. In the distant past water was collected from specific rivers in India, reflecting the influential blend of Hindu and Buddhist cosmology on the coronation. Hindu Brahmins and the country's most senior Buddhist monks will be present. Coronation practices can be traced back thousands of years to ancient India.
The crown
Not long after royal purification rites, the king proceeds to the Baisal Daksin Throne Hall where he receives sacred water from eight directions. Symbolically that means he has received legitimacy from all directions of the kingdom. He ascends the Bhadrapitha Throne, where in regal robes he sits under a Nine-Tiered Umbrella of State. Brahmins will hand the monarch the royal regalia, including a wooden sceptre inlaid with gold, a precious stone-encrusted sword believed to have been found in a lake in northern Cambodia, slippers, and a whisk made from yak's hair.
The Great Crown of Victory is the centrepiece. Tiered, gold and weighing 7.3 kilograms, it has a diamond from India at the top. Vajiralongkorn will personally place the crown on his own head and then issues his first royal command.
The audience
On Saturday afternoon, the newly-crowned king is set to grant a "grand audience" to members of the royal family, the privy council, the cabinet and senior officials. Two hours later the king will visit the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the most sacred space in Thailand, which on normal days is thronged with tourists. He then symbolically moves into the Royal Residence.
The procession
The main element of Sunday's ceremonies, streets across Bangkok's historic heart have been blocked off in preparation for this moment. The king will sit on a royal palanquin carried by soldiers dressed in colourful traditional garb. A 21-gun salute will start the procession. Some 200,000 people are expected to line the seven-kilometre route around the city.
Meet the people
On the last day of the ceremony Rama X will appear on the balcony of Suddhaisavarya Prasad Hall in the Grand Palace at 4:30pm "to receive the good wishes of the people". An hour later, diplomats will be given an audience at the Grand Palace. This is the only time during the ceremony that representatives of foreign governments will greet the king.
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