JuD chief challenges his arrest in Pak court

Lahore: Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed, a UN designated Pakistani terrorist whom the US has placed a USD 10 million bounty on, challenged his arrest in the terror financing cases in the Lahore High Court here on Tuesday.
In a fresh petition, Saeed and 67 other leaders of the banned Jamaat-ud Dawa (JuD) and its charity wing Falah-i-Insaniat (FIF), challeneged the FIRs of terror financing against them in the LHC through their counsels, Advocate A K Dogar, Ahmad Abudullah Dogar and Ghulam Yasin Bhatti.
The petitioners have made the interior ministry, the Punjab home department and the Counter Terrorism Department of Punjab police respondents in the case.
The court will fix hearing of this case later. Saeed was arrested on July 17 in a terror financing case and the anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Gujrat (some 200-km from Lahore) will take it up on September 2. He is kept at the Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail in high security.
The petitioners said JuD chief Saeed and others (67) are not members of Lashkar-e-Taiba either they have any nexus with it.
Saeed and others prayed to the LHC to declare the property detailed in this petition was “dedicated for the purpose of mosques and is being used as such therefore FIRs are without lawful authority and of no legal effect.” Saeed-led JuD is believed to be the front organisation for the LeT which is responsible for carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people. The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab Police had registered 23 FIRs against the petitioners on the charges of “terror financing” in different cities of Punjab province.
The US Department of the Treasury has designated Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and the US, since 2012, has offered a USD 10 million reward for information that brings Saeed to justice. (PTI)