Hafiz Saeed’s release raises fears of fresh terror wave in India
Lashkar’s intimate relationship with the Pakistani state
Given the Lashkar’s intimate relationship with the Pakistani state, Saeed’s release is no surprise. Pakistan’s military establishment sees the Lashkar as a partner and strategic asset, not a threat that must be crushed. Even as Pakistan fights hostile jihadist elements that threaten it in the west, it continues to patronise groups such as the Lashkar; groups which, like the Pakistan Army itself, see themselves as guardians of the ideological frontiers of the state. - Praveen Swami
Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, a Saudi-trained Islamist
In the early 1980s, Saeed was again sent to Saudi Arabia for higher studies by his university. There he met Saudi sheikhs who were financing or actively taking part in the US-sponsored jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviet troops. It is believed that it was then that Saeed first started associating with jihadis and began identifying with jihadi ideology. In 1987, Saeed, along with Abdullah Azzam, founded the Markaz Dawa-Wal-Irshad, a group with roots in the Jamait Ahl-e-Hadis — a branch of radical Sunni thought which believes that only the sayings and doings of Prophet Mohammed, his followers and family members form the sole basis of Islam. It was this organisation that led to the creation of the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba in 1990 with the help of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence to carry out terror strikes in India to capture Jammu & Kashmir. - Rudroneel Ghosh
What next? Saeed for Nishaan-e-Pakistan? - The Pioneer Edit Desk
The flaw that let Saeed off the hook - Nirupama Subramanian
India: Pak not serious on terror - Ramesh Ramachandran
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Saeed’s release raises fears of fresh terror wave
Praveen Swami
Pakistan’s military establishment sees the Lashkar as a partner and strategic asset, not a threat that must be crushed
Despite Lashkar’s proscription by the U.N., Pakistan did little to act against the organisation
Saeed’s public speeches and writings characterised by invective against Hindus
NEW DELHI: Even as the Lashkar-e-Taiba assault team that attacked Mumbai in November was waiting for its final orders at a Karachi safehouse, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed had issued a declaration of war.
The only language India understands is that of force, a press release issued by the Jamaat-ud-Dawa recorded his telling the organisation’s leaders on October 12, 2008, and that is the language it must be talked to in.
Now, a Lahore court has released Saeed from house arrest: the consequence of so-far unexplained procedural failures by Pakistani authorities in its enforcement of the public order regulations under which he was detained. Pakistani prosecutors have not initiated criminal proceedings against the Lashkar chief, leaving him free to now rebuild the terror networks he commands.
Lashkar’s intimate relationship with the Pakistani state
Given the Lashkar’s intimate relationship with the Pakistani state, Saeed’s release is no surprise. Pakistan’s military establishment sees the Lashkar as a partner and strategic asset, not a threat that must be crushed. Even as Pakistan fights hostile jihadist elements that threaten it in the west, it continues to patronise groups such as the Lashkar; groups which, like the Pakistan Army itself, see themselves as guardians of the ideological frontiers of the state.
State patronage
Despite the Lashkar’s proscription by the United Nations Security Council in December, Pakistan did little to act against the organisation. Its offices in its southern Punjab heartlands continued to function, as did the military infrastructure that funnelled cadre across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.
Last month, a Jamaat-ud-Dawa front organisation was found to be organising relief for civilians displaced by the fighting in Pakistan’s north-west. Flying the black-and-white flag of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation volunteers ran food kitchens and ambulances catering to tens of thousands of refugees.
Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation chief Hafiz Abdur Rauf had earlier headed the Jamaat-ud-Dawa’s charitable wing, the Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq.
Earlier, in February this year, thousands of Lashkar cadre marched through Lahore holding the organisation’s black-and-white flag but under the name of a new organisation, the Tanzeem-e-Azadi-e-Kashmir [Organisation for the Liberation of Kashmir]. Pakistani newspapers reported that its activists had collected donations from bystanders, handing out receipts bearing the name of the Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation
The Lashkar story
Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and Abdullah Azzam together set up the Markaz Dawat ul-Irshad, now called the Jamaat-ud-Dawa
In 1987, the lives of a Pakistani theologian and a Palestine-born jihadist who had been Osama bin-Laden’s ideological mentor intersected in Islamabad. Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and Abdullah Azzam together set up the Markaz Dawat ul-Irshad, the Centre for the Propagation of the Faith. In his seminal work, Pakistan’s Drift Into Extremism, the scholar Hassan Abbas has recorded that the institution was part of Azzam’s effort to revive the lost art and science of jihad.
Azzam was assassinated in 1989, but Saeed succeeded in turning the MDI, now called the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, into the largest Islamist institution in the world. Despite its proscription by the Security Council after the November, 2008, massacre in Mumbai, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa continues to operate a web of educational and charitable institutions out of its sprawling campus in Muridke, near Lahore.
Saeed’s efforts were backed by the Pakistani state. First appointed to Pakistan’s powerful state-run Council on Islamic Ideology by the military regime of General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, Saeed was later given a position at Lahore’s University of Engineering and Technology.
By 1990, Saeed’s Lashkar-e-Taiba was participating in the Pakistan-sponsored covert war in Jammu and Kashmir. Hussain Haqqani, now Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, candidly admitted in a 2005 article that the Lashkar had been backed by Saudi money and protected by Pakistani intelligence services.
The Lashkar project was driven by a visceral hatred of Hindus. Born on June 5, 1950 to Kamaluddin Saeed, in the Punjab town of Sargodha, the Lashkar chief grew up hearing of Partition atrocities. In his 2007 book Frontline Pakistan, Zahid Husain reported that the horrors of the partition in 1947, which uprooted his family from their home in Shimla, left a huge imprint on Hafiz Saeed’s personality. Thirty-six members of his family were killed while migrating to Pakistan.
Saeed’s public speeches and writings have been characterised by invective against Hindus. In a 1999 article, he said that the Hindu was a mean enemy and the proper way to deal with him was the one adopted by our forefathers, who crushed them by force.
On December 13, 2001, terrorists stormed India’s Parliament.
Pakistan’s former President, General Pervez Musharraf, under pressure, proscribed the Lashkar. But the MDI renamed itself the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and resumed operation. Moreover, the Lashkar continued to operate freely out of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, where the proscription order did not apply. Pakistan also arrested Saeed in 2002, as part of a counter-terrorism action intended to ward off the risk of war with India. But he was later acquitted of sedition charges by a Lahore court.
Even as Pakistan scaled back infiltration in Kashmir, violence has fallen year-on-year; since 2002 the Lashkar’s all-India offensive escalated. After the Mumbai bombings of 2006, General Musharraf again promised to end terrorism directed at India, but once again failed to act against the Lashkar. Now, many in India’s security services fear Saeed’s release could herald a fresh wave of terror.
Source: http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/03/stories/2009060353271000.htm
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Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, a Saudi-trained Islamist
Rudroneel Ghosh
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who was charged with indulging in terrorist activities and having links with organisations such as Al Qaeda, was set free on Tuesday by the Lahore High Court. He is named in the official Mumbai attack chargesheet as an accused-absconder
With the Lahore High Court ordering the release of Jamaat-ud-Dawa’h amir Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Pakistan’s purported war on terrorism has once again come under the scanner. By releasing the head of the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, which operated as Jamaat-ud-Dawa’h after being banned (the JuD, now proscribed after the UN imposed sanctions on it, operates as the Tehreek-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool) and one of the most dreaded terrorists in South Asia, Pakistan has yet again confirmed that it is unwilling to give up on terrorism as an instrument of state policy, especially against India.
Hafiz Saeed was put under house arrest by the Pakistani authorities in December last year when the United Nations Security Council declared the JuD as a terrorist organisation and an alias of the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba. Saeed personally was charged for indulging in terrorist activities and having links with organisations such as Al Qaeda. But the Lahore High Court, deliberating on a petition filed by Saeed’s lawyers, ruled on Tuesday that the JuD leader’s detention was illegal and unconstitutional. On May 30, the Pakistani Government had presented evidence in court linking Saeed and the JuD to Al Qaeda. But the court treated the evidence as unsubstantial, paving the way for Saeed’s release.
Saeed was born in 1950 to a Pakistani Punjabi family in Sargodha. His family, originally from India, migrated from Shimla to Lahore at the time of partition. Growing up in fundamentalist environment, Saeed took to Islamic studies at a young age. It was his mother who introduced him to the Quran, which Saeed went on to memorise by heart. It is said that his favourite Quranic verse is wajahidu fee sabilallah, which means ‘wage a holy war in the name of god almighty’.
Saudi-trained Islamist
After graduating from Government College at Sargodha, he went to Saudi Arabia for a Masters degree in Islamic studies and Arabic lexicon from King Saud University in Riyadh. While there he frequently met scholars of Islam and received special instructions in theology. On returning to Pakistan, which was then under the regime of Gen Zia-ul-Haq, Saeed got his first job as a research officer in the Islamic Ideological Council. After that he went on to serve as an Islamic studies teacher at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore.
Markaz Dawa-Wal-Irshad, a group with roots in the Jamait Ahl-e-Hadis
In the early 1980s, Saeed was again sent to Saudi Arabia for higher studies by his university. There he met Saudi sheikhs who were financing or actively taking part in the US-sponsored jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviet troops. It is believed that it was then that Saeed first started associating with jihadis and began identifying with jihadi ideology. In 1987, Saeed, along with Abdullah Azzam, founded the Markaz Dawa-Wal-Irshad, a group with roots in the Jamait Ahl-e-Hadis — a branch of radical Sunni thought which believes that only the sayings and doings of Prophet Mohammed, his followers and family members form the sole basis of Islam. It was this organisation that led to the creation of the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba in 1990 with the help of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence to carry out terror strikes in India to capture Jammu & Kashmir.
Since its birth, the LeT has emerged as one of the most dangerous terrorist organisations in the sub-continent. With its headquarters in Muridke, which is 45 km from Lahore, and six main militant training camps across Pakistan, the LeT has orchestrated numerous terrorist strikes in India, including the attack on Parliament House Complex in December 2001, the Mumbai train bombings in 2006 and the 26/11 fidayeen attack on Mumbai last November. Although proscribed as a terrorist organisation in 2001, the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba continues its jihad with impunity. After the ban the LeT morphed into the Jamaat-ud-Dawa’h in 2002.
Saeed's many detentions; in and out of Pakistani jails
Saeed till date maintains that neither he nor the JuD has any links with the LeT or any other terrorist organisation. However, he has been in and out of arrest and detention over the last seven years for his involvement in terrorist activities. In December 2001 Pakistani authorities detained Saeed for his links with the attack on Parliament House . He was held until March 31, 2002; arrested again on May 15; and, was placed under house arrest on October 31 of the same year. After the July 2006 Mumbai train bombings, the Provincial Government of Pakistani Punjab arrested him on August 9 of that year and kept him under house arrest. But he was released on August 28, 2006 after a Lahore High Court order. He was arrested again on the same day by the Provincial Government and was kept in the Canal Rest House in Sheikhupura. He was finally released on the instructions of the Lahore High Court on October 17, 2006.
The same sequence of house arrests and detentions followed the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack following which the UNSC proscribed the JuD. Although Saeed has been named in the official Mumbai attack chargesheet, prepared by Mumbai Police, as an accused-absconder, and the lone-surviving terrorist in the attack, Ajmal Amir Kasab, has named Saeed as one of the key planners of the fidayeen strike in his confessional statement, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa’h amir has once again walked away as a free man on Tuesday.
Source: http://dailypioneer.com/180458/Wanted-terrorist-set-free.html
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What next? Saeed for Nishaan-e-Pakistan?
The Pioneer Edit Desk
In freeing Jamaat-ud-Dawa’h chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and more or less whitewashing his role in the conspiracy behind the November 26, 2008, terrorist attack in Mumbai, the Lahore High Court has acted completely in character. It has also confirmed the widespread apprehension that the Pakistani state has atrophied beyond repair. Its systems are completely compromised and incapable and unwilling to take on the challenge of Islamist terrorism. To call the proceedings in Lahore a kangaroo court would be to violate the dignity of marsupials. The three-judge bench listened patiently to the extraordinary arguments of Saeed’s lawyer, who claimed his client was innocent, that the United Nations Security Council had only sought a ban on the JuD and travel restrictions on its leaders, not their arrest, and that in any case Pakistan was not bound to implement Security Council resolutions because India had not acted on UN resolutions on Jammu & Kashmir! Amazingly, the three judges concurred with this mix of non-sequiturs and nonsense. They then pronounced Saeed a free man, even as his lawyer ran out of the courtroom screaming, “Allah hu Akbar.”
The JuD, as is well known, is the mother agency of the Laskhar-e-Tayyeba. It is one of the world’s most dangerous religio-terrorist organisations, the patron of mass murderers. As per the admission of the Pakistani Government and its lawyers, JuD is linked to Al Qaeda. None of this meant anything to the Pakistani judiciary, which has in the past few years systematically sabotaged its country’s anyway half-hearted war against terror by releasing a series of suspects and terrorist accomplices, including history’s greatest WMD proliferator. True, the higher judiciary has had a degree of support from street mobs on this score — the battle against Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the LeT is not quite popular in Pakistan — but in its greed for cheap applause it has certainly made this a riskier planet. Even so, the sheer brazenness of the Lahore High Court’s verdict is unique. It is difficult to match, even for a judicial system that once murdered a deposed Prime Minister following a trumped-up charge and a show trial.
In Saeed’s case, it is not possible to pretend that the judiciary acted independently. Obviously there was an element of concert with the rest of the Pakistani establishment. Following the action in Swat — the Pakistani Army has been taken kicking and screaming into the battleground against its domestic Taliban — Islamabad’s Generals may have concluded that the Americans will not pressure them on Saeed and the LeT. That is why Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani chose Tuesday to deliver a speech attacking India for disrupting the so-called peace process and demanded negotiations on Jammu & Kashmir. His silence on the outrageous Saeed verdict, on the freeing of a truly evil man, was eloquent.
The real message from Lahore and Islamabad is for the White House, for President Barack Obama and his team of wide-eyed Pakistan enthusiasts. There are severe limits to treating Pakistan as a normal country, with functional state institutions and systems. Its Army is a mix of mercenary and jihadi tendencies — oscillating between exaggerating operations to claim American dollars and seeing the Taliban as an auxiliary. Its political class and judiciary regard the Islamists as essentially good people who can be used to further the strategic and social goals of Pakistan. Perhaps all that remains is for Hafiz Mohammad Saeed to be awarded the Nishaan-e-Pakistan.
Source: http://dailypioneer.com/180491/JuDas-judiciary.html
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The flaw that let Saeed off the hook
Nirupama Subramanian
ISLAMABAD: Arguments by A.K. Dogar, counsel for Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, in the Lahore High Court that led to Tuesday’s order for his release from detention centred on the failure of the government to provide the JuD chief with grounds for his detention within the stipulated 15 days. He maintained that the grounds, when they were finally provided to Mr. Saeed, referred mainly to the U.N. resolution. The resolution did not specify the arrest of the designated individuals, and demanded only a travel ban, an assets freeze and arms embargo.
The lawyer argued that pressure from India and the U.S. had forced the Pakistan government to compromise on the country’s sovereignty and act against the JuD and its leadership. He described the group as an “unarmed” charity that ran educational institutions and health camps, including schools for girls whose students were examination toppers.
At Tuesday’s hearing, government lawyers sought to rebut Mr. Dogar’s arguments by saying that as a detention review board had extended Mr. Saeed’s detention twice, any lapses in the original detention stood rectified. They referred to the “classified information” they had shared with the Bench in an “in camera” meeting last week. But the Bench brushed it aside, saying “it is not enough.”
Even before Mr. Saeed was released following the High Court order — the order had not reached the police stationed outside his home until the evening — he managed to meet reporters at his home, and told them that the Lahore High Court decision in his favour proved that Pakistan’s judiciary was independent and did not act under pressure.
“We presented our case to the courts, to the U.N. and to the EU. This is our first success. It has proved all the charges of terrorism against the JuD are false. Although the government tried its best to link us with terrorists and Al-Qaeda, they were unsuccessful,” the JuD chief said.
“No evidence”
He described his arrest as a consequence of “Indian propaganda” linking him to the Mumbai attacks, and said: “India is trying to create problems for us all over the world with this propaganda.” But, he said, India could not produce a “shred of evidence” that he was involved in the Mumbai incident.
He said India wanted him and the JuD to be silenced because they were “firmly opposed to the Indian occupation of Kashmir and we raise our voice on this issue at every opportunity.”
Source: http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/03/stories/2009060359031000.htm
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Lahore High Court orders release of Hafiz Saeed
Nirupama Subramanian
THEIR WELCOME: Jamaat-ud-Dawa supporters hail the court verdict ordering the release of Hafiz Saeed, the outfit’s chief, on Tuesday.
ISLAMABAD: A Full Bench of the Lahore High Court on Tuesday ordered the release of Hafiz Saeed, the chief of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, known as a front organisation of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. The LeT has been blamed for the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, among other strikes.
Mr. Saeed was placed under house arrest in December 2008 during a government crackdown on the JuD following the Mumbai attacks and shortly after the U.N. Security Council 1267 Committee (on Al-Qaeda, Usama bin Laden, the Taliban and associated individuals, groups, undertakings and entities) designated him and the group as “terrorist.”
He and Colonel (retd) Nazeer Ahmed, another JuD leader who was held in the crackdown, challenged their detention in the Lahore High Court. Originally there were four petitioners but two were released by a detention review board in May.
After nearly a month of arguments, the three-judge Bench headed by Justice Ejaz Chaudhary quashed the detention orders against the two and ordered their immediate release. In a short order, the Bench said the government did not have sufficient grounds to detain the petitioners as a preventive measure. Though the government could act on a U.N. resolution, the detention of Mr. Saeed was not required in the resolution, it added.
The courtroom was packed with supporters of Mr. Saeed, and as Mr. Chaudhary dictated the order, they broke into loud chants of “Nara-takbeer, Allah-o-Akbar.”
India, which made two demands of Pakistan in the wake of the Mumbai attacks — prosecute and punish the perpetrators; dismantle the terrorist infrastructure on Pakistani soil — was closely monitoring the case as a test of Islamabad’s intentions on both questions.
External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna recently said Pakistan making progress on these two demands was a pre-condition for restarting the composite dialogue process, which India “paused” after the Mumbai attacks.
Pakistan has separately launched proceedings against five men arrested for their involvement in the Mumbai attacks. They include Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, LeT operations commander, and Zarar Shah, a LeT cadre described as a communications expert.
A detailed judgment in Mr. Saeed’s case is awaited, but it is clear from the single-paragraph short order that the court decided the case on technical grounds raised in Mr. Saeed’s petition.
Twice before, Mr. Saeed benefited from technical flaws, once in August 2006 and then after his immediate re-arrest, in October 2006. In that instance, the police failed to show Mr. Saeed his detention order or inform him of the grounds. His house arrest then is believed to have been prompted by Indian demands.
Source: http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/03/stories/2009060357150100.htm
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India: Pak not serious on terror
Ramesh Ramachandran
New Delhi, June 2: India reacted with disappointment Tuesday to Pakistan’s reluctance to do more to prosecute Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the head of the Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and for raking up the Kashmir issue.
The overwhelming sentiment was that Islamabad did not press any strong charges against Saeed, enabling the Lahore high court to set him free. External affairs minister S.M. Krishna amplified New Delhi’s sentiments by saying that it was regrettable that Pakistan disregarded its international obligations, particularly after a UN Security Council resolution listed the JuD and the LeT as being affiliates of the terrorist groups Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
"This only shows that Pakistan’s seriousness to fight against terror is still under a cloud," Mr Krishna said about Pakistan’s doublespeak on "terrorists" such as Saeed, who was wanted in India in connection with the November 26, 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
In a swift rejoinder, Mr Krishna also reminded Islamabad that terrorism had nothing to do with the Kashmir issue. "This has nothing to do with Kashmir. Terrorism, whether in Kashmir, Mumbai or elsewhere, is abominable," he said.
Mr Krishna was responding to Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s televised address Tuesday at the start of a new session of the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir Council in which he hoped "Indian occupying forces will cease human rights abuses and violence will come to an end". He also claimed that the Kashmir issue held the key to durable peace in the region.
A combative Mr Krishna went on to suggest that the composite dialogue with Pakistan could resume only when Islamabad creates conducive conditions for it. "Kashmir is a part of the composite dialogue which we have initiated with Pakistan. Now it is in Pakistan’s court to create conditions for the dialogue to be resumed," he elaborated.
India suspended the composite dialogue, which began in January 2004, after Pakistan-based elements carried out the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. India wants Pakistan to bring the perpetrators of 26/11 to justice, stop cross-border terrorism, and to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism operating from its soil.
MEA spokesman Vishnu Prakash, in turn, said Saeed’s release "raises serious doubts over Pakistan’s sincerity in acting with determination against terrorist groups and individuals operating from its territory".
"These actions by Pakistan raise questions about the sincerity of Pakistan’s investigations into the conspiracy that planned, launched and executed the terrorist attack on Mumbai in which hundreds of innocent Indian and foreign nationals lost their lives," Mr Prakash said, adding that Pakistan was still to report the progress of the investigations that it had committed to undertake into that conspiracy.
The Pakistan developments set off a series of meetings here with US charge d’affaires Peter Burleigh calling on Mr Krishna, who in turn briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when they met on Tuesday evening.
National security adviser M.K. Narayanan and foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon attended the meeting, chaired by the Prime Minister, in which they were understood to have discussed the options India could exercise.
New Delhi was expected to raise the issue with US undersecretary of state William Burns here next week as part of its efforts to mobilise international opinion against Pakistan. Mr Satish Chandra, a former Indian high commissioner to Islamabad and a former deputy national security adviser, felt New Delhi should impose costs on Islamabad for aiding and abetting terrorism targeted at India.
Source: http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftnavigation/news/top-story/india-pak-not-serious-on-terror.aspx
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Chidambaram: 26/11 probe won’t be affected
Sandeep Dikshit
NEW DELHI: Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram said on Tuesday the release of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed was a commentary on Pakistan’s commitment to act against the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks.
India was unhappy over Pakistan’s lack of seriousness and commitment in booking all the masterminds of the attack, he said, but discounted fears that Saeed’s release would set back India’s investigations into the attack. The HuD chief is listed as accused number one in the charge sheet filed by the Mumbai Police.
The Foreign Office said in a statement that Pakistan was yet to report the progress of the investigations it had committed to undertake. “We are disappointed at the release. He [Saeed] is the head of the JuD and the Lashkar-e-Taiba, organisations listed under the UNSC Resolution 1267 as being affiliates of the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. [He] is specifically listed as linked to these terrorist groups ...It is regrettable that not withstanding this background and the international obligations it entails on Pakistan, he has been released,” it said.
Source: http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/03/stories/2009060359061000.htm
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Pak authorities to move SC against Saeed's release by LHC
PTI | Lahore
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Pakistani authorities on Tuesday said they planned to move the Supreme Court against the Lahore High Court's order to release JuD chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who was placed under house arrest in the wake of Mumbai attacks.
Rana Sanaullah, the Law Minister of Punjab province, indicated a review petition would be filed in the Supreme Court against the Lahore High Court's decision to free Saeed and his close aide Col (retd) Nazir Ahmed.
Sanaullah told reporters that the government respected the High Court's decision but it had to move the apex court against orders which create problems for the country internationally.
Punjab Home Secretary Nadeem Hasan Asif said the government was consulting legal experts about filing a review petition in the apex court. Official sources, however, said the appeal would be filed in the Supreme Court within the next few days.
The High Court, which was hearing a petition filed by Saeed and Ahmed to challenge their detention, freed the two earlier in the day.
During an earlier hearing of Saeed's petition, Pakistan's Attorney General Latif Khosa had told the High Court that the government had evidence which showed the JuD's "prima facie links" with al-Qaeda. This was the first time that Pakistan acknowledged that JuD has links with al-Qaeda.
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-terrorism-jihad/hafiz-saeed’s-release-raises-fears/d/1439