Pakistan: Lahore Court Grants Pre-arrest Bail to Hafiz Saeed in Illegal Land Case

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore on Monday granted pre-arrest bail to Mumbai terror attacks mastermind and Jamat ud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed.

Islamabad: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore on Monday granted pre-arrest bail to Mumbai terror attacks mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, and three others in a case pertaining to the outfit’s alleged illegal use of land for its seminary.

The anti-terrorism court granted interim bail to Saeed, Hafiz Masood, Ameer Hamza, and Malik Zafar till August 31, the Dawn reported. The bail has been granted till August 31 against surety bonds of Rs 50,000 to be paid by all the three.

The Lahore High Court (LHC), while hearing a petition filed by JuD Chief and his seven aides challenging the charges of terror financing, also issued notices to the federal government, the Punjab government and the Counter-Terrorism Department.

The two-member bench asked all the three parties to file their response within two weeks.

A lawyer for the federal government objected to the notices, arguing that the petition was non-maintainable. The bench, however, dismissed the objection and adjourned proceedings until July 30, Dawn News reported.

According to the joint petition submitted earlier in July, the JuD leaders submitted that the facts, narrated in the impugned FIR lodged on July 1, illegally described them as members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror group and levelled unlawful allegation of terror financing.

Prior to this on July 3, top 13 leaders of the banned JuD, including Saeed and Naib Emir Abdul Rehman Makki, were booked in nearly two dozen cases for terror financing and money laundering under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.

(With agency inputs)