Home dept given time to reply in Saeed case

LAHORE :Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi of Lahore High Court on Friday gave time until September 26, to Home Department for filing reply to petition of Jamatud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed and his aides Prof Malik Zafar Iqbal, Abdur Rehman Abid, Qazi Kashif Hussain and Abdullah Ubaid against their detention.

On Friday, the detainees' counsel submitted written arguments on behalf of the petitioners and the Home Department needed time to rebut those. Petitioners counsel AK Dogar submitted that the Punjab government on July 28, had ordered for petitioners detention of 60 days under Section 1 of Section 3 of Maintenance of Public Order, 1960 for a period of next 60 days. He said there was no evidence whatsoever that the petitioners were planning to spread chaos in country or that they had planned violent demonstrations. He submitted that the government in the impugned detention orders had only shown apprehension against the petitioners and under the law no presumption and assumption could give rise to any apprehension unless it was supported by some piece of evidence.

He said an order of preventive detention had to satisfy the requirements laid down by the Supreme Court but in the petitioners case a blatant violation of laws had been committed by the government. He alleged that the government detained the petitioners to please India and America only as different courts of the country in past had already declared detention of JuD leaders illegal after the government failed to prove its charges. He said imprisonment without trial and conviction was prima facie unlawful and unconstitutional. He submitted that the petitioners had filed a department representation against the detention before the home secretary on August 3, but it had not yet been decided. He requested to set aside the impugned detention orders by declaring it as issued without lawful authority and of no legal effect.

The Punjab Home Department in its reply had tried to justify the detention order by stating that Hafiz Saeed and other petitioners of their organisations namely JuD and FIF had been detained to stop them from collection of illegal funds for the organisations. The organisations of the detained leaders carried on illegal collection of funds/charity during their detention as 23 criminal cases had been recently registered against the FIF.

The report stated that a number of cases had been registered against Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) while the detainee also launched a campaign for his political party, which was still not registered with the Election Commission of Pakistan. The report stated that all the law enforcement agencies strongly recommended to keep the JuD leader under detention in the larger public interest. It claimed that activities of Hafiz Saeed, if released, would be of great threat to the public safety and cause breach of public order.