JAMMU: A special NIA court has issued a non-bailable warrant against Hafiz Saeed, the Pakistan-based chief of the banned terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), in connection with the agency's ongoing investigation into the Pahalgam terror attack, officials said.The Special Judge of the NIA Court issued the order on July 8, two days after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) filed a supplementary chargesheet against Hafiz Saeed in the Pahalgam terror attack case.Saeed, a globally designated terrorist by India and the United States, is also accused of masterminding the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.

The supplementary chargesheet, filed before the special NIA court in Jammu, charges the 76-year-old Saeed in both his personal capacity and as the chief of the proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and its proxy front, The Resistance Front (TRF).

He has been booked under multiple provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.According to the court order, the NIA told the court that Hafiz Saeed, a resident of Sargodha in Pakistan's Punjab province, is an accused in the Pahalgam terror attack case and has been deliberately evading arrest.The agency sought an open-dated non-bailable warrant against the absconding terrorist to facilitate further legal proceedings and advance the investigation.

"Arrest and custodial interrogation of the accused (Saeed) are necessary for a fair, complete and effective investigation. As such non-bailable warrant of arrest is issued against him and is forwarded it to the Deputy Inspector General (DIG), NIA Jammu, for execution in accordance with law," the order said.On April 22 last year, terrorists killed 26 people, most of them tourists, in Pahalgam in south Kashmir.(With PTI inputs)