Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed along with four others has challenged their house arrest on Wednesday in the Lahore High Court. Justice Sardar Muhammad Shamim Khan will hear their petition today. Hafiz Saeed, Malik Zafar Iqbal, Abdur Rehman Abid, Qazi Kashif Hussain and Abdullah Ubaid challenged their detention through senior advocate A K Dogar.
Lately, Pakistan’s former dictator Musharraf demanded Saeed’s release from house arrest, claiming that his unit was a “very fine NGO,” involved in relief activities. Previously, in a letter to Pakistan’s Interior Minister, the Mumbai terror attack mastermind claimed that “no incident of terrorism was ever alleged against the organization”.
The Lahore High Court dismissed a petition filed by a senior advocate Erum Sajjad Gull earlier on a technical ground. It observed that the petitioner had not furnished the impugned notification of Saeed’s detention.
On January 30, the Pakistan government had put Saeed and four other leaders of JuD and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) charity, a front for the JuD, under house arrest in Lahore. The government considering Interior Ministry’s order, detained them for a period of 90 days (with effect from January 30) under section 11-EEE(1) of Anti-Terrorism Act 1997.
