'Mumbai attacks mastermind' Hafiz Saeed offers humanitarian aid to storm ravaged U.S.

Islamabad, Oct. 31 (ANI): Jammat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed, who is blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and is under a 10 million dollar U.S. bounty, has offered humanitarian aid to the United States as it battles superstorm Sandy.

Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast early Tuesday, flooding much of New York City, and hitting several states with heavy winds and torrential rain, leaving at least 48 people dead.

"JuD is ready to send its volunteers, doctors, food, medicines and other relief items on humanitarian grounds if the U.S. government allows us," The Dawn quoted Saeed, as saying in a statement.

"America may have any opinion about us, it may fix bounties on our heads but as followers of the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed, we feel it is our Islamic duty to help Americans trapped in a catastrophe," he further said.

Saeed, who founded the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant outfit, said the charity - JuD - had carried out relief work in Indonesia and Sri Lanka after the Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004.

JuD is seen as a front for LeT, which Washington and Delhi blame for the commando-style attacks on India's financial capital in 2008 that killed 166 people.

In April the United States offered 10 million dollars for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Saeed, who lives openly in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore.

Saeed's charity has long denied terror accusations and is known around Pakistan for its relief work in the wake of the devastating Kashmir earthquake of 2005 and the floods of 2010, which were the worst in the country's history.

He was put under house arrest a month after the Mumbai attacks, but was released in 2009 and in 2010 as Pakistan's highest court upheld his release on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to detain him. (ANI)