Submit proof or Saeed walks free: Pak court

LAHORE: Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed’s house arrest will be set aside if the Pakistan government does not submit evidence against him, a top court in Lahore has warned.

Saeed, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief, is under house arrest since January 31.

The Lahore high court on Tuesday heard a plea against his detention. The interior secretary was supposed to appear before the court along with complete record of the case related to his detention along with four others.

Irked by the interior secretary’s absence during the proceedings, the court observed that “no citizen can be detained for an extended period on the basis of merely press clippings”.

“The conduct of the government shows it has no substantial evidence against the petitioners. The detention of the petitioners will be set aside if no concrete evidence is presented before the court,” justice Syed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi said.

Another official of the interior ministry accompanied by a deputy attorney general told the court that the secretary could not attend the proceedings due to unavoidable official responsibilities in Islamabad. The law officer sought time to file a reply to the petition.

Lamenting repeated requests for adjournment, the judge said the law officers wanted courts to stop working. The judge adjourned hearing till October 13.