Hafiz Saeed, 4 others challenge their house arrest

Lahore, Feb 21: Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed and four others on Tuesday challenged their house arrest in the Lahore High Court. LHC Justice Sardar Muhammad Shamim Khan will hear their petition on Wednesday.

Hafiz Saeed, Malik Zafar Iqbal, Abdur Rehman Abid, Qazi Kashif Hussain and Abdullah Ubaid challenged their detention through senior advocate A K Dogar. Earlier, the LHC had dismissed a petition filed by a senior advocate Erum Sajjad Gull on 'technical' ground observing the petitioner had not furnished the impugned notification of Saeed's detention.

The government on January 30 had put Saeed and four other leaders of JuD and Falah-e-Insaniat under house arrest in Lahore under the country's anti-terrorism act.

In their petition, Saeed and four others said the government in light of Interior Ministry's order detained them for a period of 90 days (with effect from January 30) in exercise of powers under section 11-EEE(1) of Anti Terrorism Act 1997. They said Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had claimed that the government was fulfilling its obligations under United Nations Security Council's resolutions.

"The government has proved that the Pakistan is a servile and a dependent nation. We have been serving the country like iconic social worker Abdul Sattar Edhi for the last many years," they said. The petitioners said the US had clearly told Islamabad that in case of not following the advice to take action against JuD it (Pakistan) may face sanctions.

Previously, the petitioners said the government had used the same UNSC resolution for detain Hafiz Saeed and a full bench of LHC had set him free. "The government has no evidence that we are a 'risk' to security of Pakistan and merely on the basis of the UNSC resolutions our liberty cannot be curtailed," the petitioners said and prayed to the court to declare the government order being mala fides without jurisdiction and void the fundamental right to their life and liberty and ordered for their liberty.

Saeed, who is carrying a USD 10 million bounty on his head, was also put under house arrest after the 2008 Mumbai terror attack but he was freed by Lahore High Court in 2009.

PTI