Pak court issues notice to JuD for running 'Sharia Court'

Lahore, Apr 20: A Pakistani court has issued a notice to the Jamat-ud-Dawah, led by the 2008 Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed, for running a Taliban-style parallel judicial system here.

Lahore High Court's Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan yesterday issued notices to JuD's Qazi Hafiz Idrees, secretary interior, federal law minister, Punjab chief secretary, Inspector General Police Punjab and the Lahore police chief directing them to file a reply on April 26.

On the lines of the Taliban, JuD has recently set up a 'Sharia Court' here to hand out "easy and swift justice", the first such parallel judicial system in Pakistan's Punjab Province.

The court named as "Darul Qaza Sharia" is a parallel private judicial system established primarily to provide 'easy and swift justice' to the people.

Petitioner Khalid Saeed told the court that he had received summons written on letter pad of 'Darul Qaza Al-Sharia' with a direction to appear before its "arbitration court of Sharia".

Khalid said he also received telephone calls from Qazi, who acts as a judge in the JuD court, asking him to appear before him.

The petitioner said he had submitted applications to the government functionaries-respondents and Chief Justice of Pakistan against the illegal summons but he got "no response" from them.

He pleaded to the court to order the respondent authorities to look into the matter and take action against the organisation for committing illegal acts and for subverting the Constitution by establishing a parallel judicial system.

PTI