Pakistan lodged appeals yesterday against a court decision to release a militant leader wanted in India, where he has been accused of plotting a bloody assault on the Indian city of Mumbai in November.
The militant, Hafiz Mohamed Saeed, was put under house arrest in early December after a UN Security Council committee added him and an Islamist charity he heads to a list of people and organisations linked to Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
But a High Court in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore ordered his release on June 2, citing a lack of evidence.
The decision angered India, which said Pakistani authorities had enough evidence to put Saeed behind bars.
The federal and Punjab provincial governments filed separate petitions in the Supreme Court yesterday, seeking the reversal of the order to release Saeed and one associate.
“We aren’t satisfied with the judgment of the high court,” Deputy Attorney-General Shah Khawar said.
“It did not give weight to the United Nations Security Council resolutions in respect of the JuD,” he said, referring to the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) Islamist charity that Saeed heads.
Saeed’s detention had been lawful, Khawar said.
“For preventive detention, evidence isn’t necessary. It’s done on the basis of classified information which may not be produced before the court at this stage,” he said.
The assault on Mumbai, in which 166 people were killed, strained ties between the nuclear-armed rivals and led to an Indian freeze on a five-year peace process that had brought better relations.
India says the assault was carried out by Pakistan-based members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group and that they must have had backing from some official Pakistani agencies.
The LeT is banned in Pakistan.
The government denied any involvement by state agencies but acknowledged the co-ordinated attacks in India’s financial capital were launched and partly planned from Pakistani soil, and that the sole surviving attacker was Pakistani.
An Indian court issued arrest warrants late last month for 22 Pakistanis, including Saeed, for their role in the conspiracy that led to the assault.
Khawar said Saeed would remain free pending the result of the appeal, which he said had nothing to do with the Mumbai assault.
“On the basis of the UN resolution and classified information, the government feel that it’s necessary for the country’s security to keep him under lawful detention,” he said.
JuD spokesman Yahya Mujahid said they would fight the case.
“We got justice previously and we hope we’ll win this legal battle too,” Mujahid said.
Saeed founded the LeT in 1990, and for years it battled Indian forces in the disputed Kashmir region.
He stepped down as LeT leader shortly after India accused the group of being behind a militant attack on its parliament in December 2001.
The group was banned in Pakistan in early 2002.
The United Nations said in December that the JuD charity that he now heads was a front for the LeT.
Until recently, the JuD had an extensive welfare network across Pakistan funded by donations. It played a major role in helping survivors of a 2005 earthquake in northern mountains that killed 73,000 people.
JuD members have also been aiding people displaced over the past two months by an army offensive against Taliban militants in the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad.
They have been helping under the banner of a previously unheard-of Islamist charity, the Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation. Reuters
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