Pakistani court: Government must produce evidence or Hafiz Saeed goes free

A.K. Dogar, center, defense counsel of Hafiz Saeed, comes out of the Supreme Court building in Islamabad in this file photo. (AFP)

ISLAMABAD: The Lahore High Court on Friday postponed legal proceedings against the alleged mastermind of the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai in which more than 160 people died.
Hafiz Saeed is the chief of Jama’at-ud-Da’wah (JuD), a charity which many believe is a front for the militant group of which Saeed is a co-founder, Lashkar-e-Taiba — designated as a terrorist organization by the UN, the EU and several countries.
Saeed and four aides were placed under house arrest in Pakistan in January under the Anti-Terrorism Act, but no formal charges have yet been filed against him. The judge accepted the Interior Ministry’s request to present its evidence against Saeed to him privately in his chambers due to the sensitivity of the case.
Saeed’s defense counsel, A.K. Dogar, has challenged his client’s detention and claims that Saeed and his aides were arrested because of pressure from India and the US — which has offered a $10 million bounty for Saeed’s arrest. Saeed tops India’s most-wanted list as he is accused of involvement in a series of attacks on Indian soil dating back to 2001. Saeed denies the allegations.
“Indian pressure has led the government to keep Hafiz Saeed detained,” a JuD spokesman told Arab News. “Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had been trying to please Indian Prime Minister Modi through gestures of friendship and had made promises to keep this friendship intact. Instead of countering Indian propaganda — which the Americans are also part of — Pakistan’s foreign minister has conceded to their demands, leaving the Pakistani people unprotected and arresting them.”
The spokesman claimed that India’s pursuit of punitive measures against Saeed is not connected to terrorist attacks, but to JuD’s support of Kashmiri independence.
“Indians hate JuD because of its undeterred support for the Kashmiri cause,” he said. “We have brought evidence of Indian atrocities committed against the people of Kashmir seeking self-determination, and this aggravates them.”
On Tuesday, Dogar reportedly described Saeed’s detention as “illegal and a violation of basic rights” and asked the court to declare the detention null and void.
The court warned that Saeed, whose initial 90-day sentence has already been extended twice, would be freed if the government failed to submit evidence to legally keep him detained.
“No citizen can be detained for an extended period on the basis of merely press clippings,” Justice Saeed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi said, reportedly angered by the absence of Interior Ministry officials at the hearing, according to local news reports. He added that the “conduct of the government” suggested there was “no substantial evidence against the petitioners.”
Naqvi gave the secretary of the interior until next week to submit evidence.
JuD last month formed the Milli Muslim League (MML) in a bid to enter mainstream politics. They nominated a candidate for the Lahore constituency seat left vacant by the judicial ouster of Nawaz Sharif on July 28. The MML candidate failed to win, but did register more votes than two of Pakistan’s largest political parties in the election.
Pakistan’s election commission has rejected the party’s registration, but the MML is still expected to participate in by-elections in Peshawar on Oct. 26.
The party’s formation is partly the result of new attempts by the government to integrate groups with militant links into the country’s political sphere. At a press briefing in Islamabad last week, Pakistan Armed Forces spokesman Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor explained that this process had already started, in reference to the MML.
“The government has started some discussion over mainstreaming them, so that they can make a constructive contribution,” he said.