JuD member awarded six-month jail, Rs10,000 fine

LAHORE: An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on Friday convicted Muhammad Ashraf, a member and leader of the banned Jamaatud Dawa (JD) organization, nominated in a case by Counter Terrorism Department. The court also awarded six-month jail to Ashraf with imposition of a fine of Rs10,000.

The court awarded six months jail to Ashraf under 11-F(2) of Anti-Terrorism Act (ATC), being a member of the banned outfit for supporting and arranging meetings of the proscribed organization, in FIR No 26/2019 registered by the CTD. A daybefore, the ATC judge Arshad Hussain Bhutta had convicted JD Chief Hafiz Saeed on charges of terror financing and awarded him ten and a half years imprisonment.

Moreover, Professor Zafar Iqbal and Yahya Mujahid had been sentenced to 10 and a half years each, while Professor Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki was sentenced to six months imprisonment.

According to details, on July 3, 2019, the top 13 leaders of the JD were booked in multiple cases for terror financing and money laundering under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) 1997. The Counterterrorism Department (CTD), which registered the cases in five cities of Punjab, declared that the JD was financing terrorism through massive funds collected from non-profit organisations and trusts including Al-Anfaal Trust, Dawatul Irshad Trust, Muaz Bin Jabal Trust, etc. Furthermore, during investigation, the CTD found their links with the JD and its top leadership accused of financing terrorism by building huge assets and properties from the funds collected in Pakistan. These non-profit organisations were banned in April 2019.

Later, on July 17, Hafiz Saeed was arrested from Gujranwala on charges of terror financing by the Punjab CTD. Besides, the top JD leaders, Malik Zafar Iqbal, Ameer Hamza, Mohammad Yahya Aziz, Mohammad Naeem, Mohsin Bilal, Abdul Raqeeb, Dr Ahmad Daud, Dr Muhammad Ayub, Abdullah Ubaid, Mohammad Ali and Abdul Ghaffar were booked.

However, the JD leaders claim that they have been nominated in the cases wrongly by attributing them as leaders of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LT). According to the counsel of the JD leaders, his clients had quit the LT before the organisation was banned in 2002.

The counsel argued that the cases against his clients have been made on the basis of a link to defunct Al-Nifal Trust which was formed to construct mosques in the country. Four cases against Professor Hafiz Muhammad Saeed have been decided so far. A total of 41 cases have been registered by the CTD against the leaders of Jamat-ud-Dawa, out of which 25 have been decided while the rest are pending in the ATC courts.