Thaindian News

Islamabad, Aug 3 (IANS) Pakistan’s Supreme Court Monday indefinitely adjourned the hearing of petitions challenging the release of Jamaat ud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed, who India claims is the mastermind of last year’s Mumbai terror attack.
Dawn quoted Hafiz Saeed’s counsel A.K. Dogar as saying that the hearing of two petitions filed by the Federal and Punjab governments had been adjourned indefinitely by the apex court.

The move was apparently linked to the resignation of Punjab’s Advocate General Raza Farooq, who was representing the provincial government in the hearings, the report said.

The apex court’s direction comes two days after India said there was ‘enough evidence’ to continue the investigation against Saeed in connection with the Mumbai attacks that left over 170 people dead.

Saeed, who had been placed under house arrest in December after the UN proscribed the JuD in the wake of the Nov 26-29, 2008 Mumbai attacks, was released by the Lahore High Court in June citing lack of evidence.

On July 28, Pakistan said it would not arrest Saeed till adequate proof was provided of his involvement in the Mumbai carnage.

“We cannot arrest him till adequate proof is provided. There is no proof,” Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik had said.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh July 16 had said that his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani had informed him that “common consensus” was being evolved and that “action will have to be taken against him (Saeed)”.

Two days before that, on July 14, Pakistan’s Punjab provincial government had disassociated itself from the case against Saeed, saying the federal government had not furnished “solid evidence” to warrant his continued house arrest.

The Punjab government’s move came as a three-member Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was considering two identical petitions filed by the federal and provincial governments against Saeed’s release.

Punjab Advocate General Raza Farooq told the court that the provincial government had put Saeed under house arrest on the directive of the federal government.

Saeed is the founder of the Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror group that New Delhi accuses of also 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.

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 Nov 26-29, 2008 attacks in which 26 foreigners were among the victims.

Pakistan has charged five men, including LeT commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, with involvement in the Mumbai mayhem.

Last month, Pakistan had handed over a dossier to India admitting its nationals were involved in the attacks. The dossier came days before the July 16 Gilani-Manmohan Singh meeting on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movemnet Summit at the Egyptian resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh.