Lahore high court to Pak govt: Don’t arrest Hafiz Saeed
LAHORE: On the eve of a visit by a UNSC’s sanctions monitoring team, a Pakistani court on Wednesday restrained the government from ar resting Mumbai attacks mastermind and JuD chief Hafiz Saeed.
The Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) chief, who was listed under UN Security Council Resolution 1267 in December 2008, had on Tuesday approached the court seeking protection from arrest or action against JuD and Falah-i-Ins a ni at Foundation (FIF) ahead of the visit of the UN monitoring team.
The UN team will be visiting Islamabad from Thursday to assess Pakistan’s compliance with the world body’s sanctions regime.
According to a media report, the Pakistan government will not give the committee any direct access to Saeed or his entities.
Lahore high court justice Amin Aminuddin Khan heard Saeed’s plea and refrained the government from taking any action against him.
“The LHC today accepted JuD chief Saeed’s application and issued order restraining the fed- eral government from arresting him till further orders,” a court official confirmed to PTI.
He said the court also asked the government to file its reply on March 17.
In his plea, Saeed had saidt hat the government wants to arrest him at the behest of the US and India, whose lobby for the last many years has been trying to prove that he was “somehow involved in Mumbai attacks”.
Appearing for the Lashkar-eTaiba (LeT) founder, his counsel AK Dogar told the court that the UNSC delegation was due in the country this week and the government intends to take an “adverse action” against him during the team’s stay in the country.