Two petitions against Saeed's release resubmitted to Pak SC

Rezaul H Laskar

Islamabad, Jul 7 (PTI) Pakistani authorities on Tuesday
resubmitted to the Supreme Court two petitions challenging the
release from house arrest of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz
Mohd Saeed, a key accused in the attacks on west Indian city
of Mumbai, after removing the "technical flaws" due to which
the pleas were rejected earlier.

Deputy Attorney General Shah Khawar filed one petition
on behalf of the federal government while Advocate General
Raza Farooq submitted the second for the Punjab government.

The petitions were resubmitted after removing the
technical flaws pointed out by the apex court on Monday.

The fresh petitions challenge the release of Saeed and
his close aides Col (retd) Nazir Ahmed, Amir Hamza and Mufti
Abdur Rehman from house arrest.

Saeed and Ahmed were released on the orders of the Lahore
High Court on June 2 while Hamza and Rehman were freed by a
judicial review board a month earlier.

The original petitions filed by the federal and Punjab
governments were rejected by the office of the Supreme Court
registrar as they challenged only the release of Saeed and
Ahmed.

The office of the registrar said Hamza and Rehman --
who were originally party to the matter -- should also be
included in the petitions.

Deputy Attorney General Shah Khawar said the federal
government was "not satisfied with the judgement of the High
Court" that freed Saeed as the relevant law regulating
preventive detention was not "properly appreciated."

"Another important ground is that the resolution of
the United Nations Security Council (declaring the JuD a
terrorist organisation) has not been properly interpreted and
we believe that was also a sufficient ground for the
detention," he told reporters.

The federal government's petition also said the High
Court had "not considered the sensitivity of the case" in the
context of Pakistan's ongoing campaign against "internal and
external terrorism."

The petition said the government had "classified
information which could be made the basis of (a) detention
order."

The government's action appeared to be aimed at
clearing the air before meetings of the Foreign Secretaries
and Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan on the sidelines of
a Non-Aligned Movement summit in Egypt later this month. PTI
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