LAHORE, PAKISTAN — Pakistan has extended the house arrest of the head of a charity alleged to be a front for the militant group blamed in the Mumbai attacks, an official told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, a founder of the now-banned militant group Jamaat-ud-Dawa, will remain detained for another 60 days, said Usman Anwar, a top government official in the Punjab province.
“His house has already been declared a sub-jail where he will spend the rest of the detention period,” Anwar said, adding that the province extended the detention on orders from the federal government. Anwar is the Punjab’s additional home secretary.
Saeed leads Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a charity that the U.N. recently declared a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant organization that India alleges masterminded the November slaughter of 164 people in its financial center.
Pakistan has taken several steps against Jamaat-ud-Dawa, including shuttering scores of its offices, arresting dozens of activists and ordering banks to freeze its assets.
Saeed, who was placed under house arrest a month ago, has denied any role in the Mumbai attacks. Jamaat-ud-Dawa insists it cut ties to Lashkar after that group was banned in 2002. The charity runs schools and clinics and has helped earthquake victims, gaining support among a population suspicious of both India and the United States.
Analysts say Pakistani intelligence agencies helped establish Lashkar in the 1980s to act as a proxy fighting force in the dispute with India over the Kashmir region.
