A special NIA court in Jammu issued a non-bailable warrant against Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed on July 8, 2026, two days after the agency named him as an accused in last year's Pahalgam attack, according to PTI.

The non bailable warrant against Hafiz Saeed now gives the agency a procedural route to move the case toward a trial in absentia. The order matters even though Saeed will almost certainly never be arrested on it. He lives under Pakistani state custody in Sargodha, Punjab, and Islamabad has never handed over an accused wanted for an attack on Indian soil. What the warrant actually does is legal: it clears the first hurdle for India to try Saeed in absentia for the killing of 26 civilians at Baisaran meadow, whether or not he ever sets foot in an Indian courtroom.

What the chargesheet says

The NIA filed a supplementary chargesheet against Saeed on July 6, 2026, before the Jammu special court, two days ahead of the warrant. It charges the 76-year-old both personally and as head of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba and its front, The Resistance Front, under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, per Siasat. This builds on the NIA's original 1,597-page chargesheet filed on December 15, 2025, which had already named Pakistani handler Sajid Jatt among the accused, reports PGurus.

The court's own order laid out why it acted. "Arrest and custodial interrogation of the accused (Saeed) are necessary for a fair, complete and effective investigation," the NIA Special Court in Jammu said, as quoted by PTI. The NIA had specifically asked for an open-dated warrant, telling the court Saeed has been deliberately dodging arrest, India TV News reports.

The road to a trial in absentia

India's new criminal code makes this possible in a way the older law didn't. Section 356 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita allows a Proclaimed Offender to be tried in absentia, but the process has steps built in. Courts must issue two consecutive non-bailable warrants at least 30 days apart and complete a formal notice procedure before a trial can actually begin, The Week explains. This warrant is the first of those two.

With this one unexecuted, as expected, the NIA is now set to ask the court to declare Saeed a Proclaimed Offender, a status that would let investigators attach his properties and push the case toward trial, Republic World reports. "Based on this NBW, we will seek to declare Saeed a proclaimed offender," an unnamed official told Hindustan Times, a quote also carried by The Week.

Why Pahalgam, and why Saeed

The April 22, 2025 attack at Baisaran meadow near Anantnag killed 26 civilians, 25 of them tourists and one a local pony operator. The NIA has described it as a religion-based targeted killing, Outlook India reports. The massacre, most of whose victims were Hindu tourists, triggered a four-day military confrontation between India and Pakistan that came to be known as Operation Sindoor.

Saeed is not a new name to Indian investigators. The UN- and US-designated global terrorist is widely regarded as the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people, and he has been in Pakistani custody since a 2020 conviction on terrorism-financing charges, per Reuters reporting cited by Outlook India. That his own government has jailed him for financing terror, yet never extradited him for attacks on India, is precisely why New Delhi is now building a legal case designed to proceed with or without his presence.

The next marker to watch is procedural rather than dramatic: a second non-bailable warrant, issued at least 30 days after this one, followed by the Proclaimed Offender application. Only after the warrant-and-notice process is complete, and the statutory 90-day period after framing of charges has passed, can a Jammu court actually move toward trying Hafiz Saeed in absentia, in a courtroom he is expected never to enter.