Thaindian News

Islamabad, July 6 (IANS) Fresh pleas are to be filed in Pakistan’s Supreme Court against the release of Jamaat-ud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks, a government lawyer said Monday.
The petitions by the federal and Punjab provincial governments were filed Saturday with the Supreme Court registrar. These had been rejected on technical grounds.

Deputy Attorney General Shah Khawar told Geo News that the Supreme Court registrar had returned the petitions as they challenged only the release of Saeed and his close aide Col (retd) Nazir Ahmed on the orders of the Lahore High Court.

Khawar also quoted the registrar as saying two other JuD leaders - Amir Hamza and Mufti Abdur Rehman - who were originally parties to the matter should also be included in the petitions, Khawar said.

Hamza and Rehman, detained along with Saeed in December in the wake of the Nov 26-29 Mumbai carnage that claimed over 170 lives, were freed by a judicial review board in May.

Khawar said the petitions would be resubmitted after rectifying the technical flaws.

Saeed is the founder of the Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror group that New Delhi accuses of staging the Dec 13, 2001 attack on the Indian parliament. The LeT had morphed into the JuD after it was banned in the aftermath of the attack.

The Lahore High Court had released him June 2, citing insufficient evidence.

“The court has said the detention of Hafiz Saeed was a violation of the constitution and the law of this country,” his counsel A.K. Dogar had said at that time.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone gunman captured alive during the Mumbai mayhem, has admitted to being a Pakistani national and to being trained by the LeT for the Mumbai attacks.

Saeed was detained last December after the United Nations declared the JuD a terrorist group.

He was originally detained for one month and this had been successively extended. On May 5, his detention was extended by 60 days.

After the UN action, the authorities arrested some 40 JuD members and closed dozens of its offices and relief units in the country.

India had in January handed over a dossier to Pakistan linking the LeT and some Pakistani nationals to the Mumbai carnage that claimed the lives of over 170 people, including 26 foreigners.

In February, Pakistan admitted that part of the Mumbai conspiracy was planned in this country and also submitted a list of 30 questions on the Indian dossier over the evidence on the Mumbai attack.

India replied to this in March. Pakistan then sought another set of clarifications that India has provided.

Also in December 2008, Pakistani authorities arrested LeT commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi after India handed over to the FBI intercepts of telephone conversations between him and the Mumbai attackers.

The FBI concluded that the intercepts were genuine and that Lakhvi was the handler of the Mumbai attackers.

Four of Lakhvi’s associates - Zarar Shah, Abu al-Qama, Hammad Amin Saddiq and Shahid Jameel Riaz - have also been jailed.