Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed, who has not been seen in public for a long time, is now spending a lot of time giving discourse to young men at the Darul Uloom Haqqania, a prominent Islamic Seminary located in the town of Akora Khattak, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, North- West Pakistan. Officially, he is imprisoned at Central jail at Kot Lakhpat, Karachi even as his son and close associates have filed nomination for the upcoming elections in Pakistan.

Sources, who are attending the seminary, which is dubbed as the “university of Jihad”, because of the teaching it propagates—that of Hanafi Deobandi school of Sunni Islam—told The Sunday Guardian that Saeed has been a regular visitor there for at least one year. According to these sources, who are a part of the “establishment”, Saeed’s lectures are popular among the students and hence he is invited regularly to the seminary. Apart from the men in uniform who guard him, much of the security layer around him consists of his own men who are in civilian clothes.

Notable “luminaries” of this seminary include Mullah Omar, the founder of Taliban, Jalaluddin Haqqani, the founder of Haqqani network, Jalaluddin’s son Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is now the first deputy leader of Afghanistan and the acting interior minister, Akhtar Mansour, Taliban’s second supreme leader and Asim Umar, former the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent. Significantly, as per the chargesheet filed by Pakistan agencies in the investigation in the assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the attack on her was planned in Darul Uloom Haqqania by three former students of the seminary— Nadir alias Qari Ismail, Nasrullah alias Ahmed and Abdullah alias Saddam. They were guided by a senior planner, Ibadur- Rehman alias Farooq Chattan, who gave them the suicide jackets.

The three former students of Haqqania had chosen the suicide bombers, Bilal and Ikramullah from South Waziristan and brought them back to Akora Khattak, Haqqania, situated 60 km from Peshawar, is now one of the biggest madrasas in Pakistan and many Taliban leaders add “Haqqani” to their name in respect for the seminary from which they have studied. It attracts thousands of students every year and because of the influence it yields among its followers, it is given millions of dollars by the Pakistani establishment every year.

It has continued to receive political patronage from successive Prime Ministers including Imran Khan, despite the said seminary being involved in violent activities. Last month, India has asked Pakistan to extradite Saeed, who is the main accused in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack. This is unlikely to happen ever. The 72-year-old Saeed had not been seen publicly since April 2022 after an antiterrorism court in Pakistan had sentenced him to 32 years in jail in terror financing cases. This had come after he was sentenced to 36 years in prison for five similar cases. The total sentence of 68 years’ imprisonment, as per the court orders, were to be served concurrently.

In June 2021, three people were killed and over 20 others injured in the blast outside Saeed’s Johar town residence in Lahore. After that Pakistan government had distributed dossiers to the international community, which it claimed contained proof that the blast was masterminded by Indian intelligence operatives. Pakistan security personnel had arrested eight accused in the case including a woman for their involvement in the case.