'Do I look like a terrorist?' asks Hafiz Saeed

Jamaat-ud-Daawa chief Hafiz Muhammed Saeed, who is believed to have masterminded the brazen terror attacks on Mumbai in November 2008, has denied his role in the bloodbath.

Saeed, whose name is on top of the United States, United Nations and European Union's most wanted list in Pakistan, also denied his links with the banned terror outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba and stressed that even the agencies could not table any evidence regarding his involvement in the Mumbai massacre in which 166 people including some foreigners were killed.

"Do I look like a terrorist?" Saeed told The Independent newspaper.

Saeed's comments almost coincided with the strategic dialogue between Pakistan and the United States in Washington. Saeed, who moves freely in Lahore guarded by two Pakistani policemen, said he has won court battles to remain free and described charges against him of having links with the LeT as 'Indian propaganda.'

Saeed said he too had condemned the ghastly Mumbai terror attacks, but added that he supports the LeT's struggle for 'freedom' in Kashmir.

He insisted that neither he nor the JuD has any terror links, rather it is a charity which has hundreds of offices across Pakistan working for the needy ones.

"They make me out to be the biggest and most evil terrorist. Do I look like one to you?," Saeed said laughing. 

When asked that whether he had met Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, Saeed's response was positive but he was quick to add that he has met Laden only once that too on a Haj pilgrimage to Mecca in the 1980s.

Saeed said he prayed near Laden and talked to him 'but only briefly.'

Saeed's statements are likely to widen the 'trust deficit' in Washington where US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed the dawn of 'a new day' after 'years of misunderstandings' in the relationship between the US and Pakistan.

Image: JuD chief Hafiz Saeed