Islamabad, July 15: Hafiz Muhammed Saeed, the venom-spewing leader of jihadi outfits Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa — and one of the main accused in the 26/11 attack — will remain free to plot fresh terror attacks on India.
The Punjab government on Tuesday told the Supreme Court it was withdrawing the case and an appeal against a lower court order to release Saeed, who was detained after 26/11.
Punjab’s advocate general Muhammad Raza Farooq said the federal government, which had put Saeed under house arrest, failed to provide concrete evidence for his incarceration. Saeed’s defence said he was arrested after a Security Council resolution declared JuD a terrorist organisation.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Ahmed said, ‘‘Your case is not based on your own information but on the UN resolution. The basis on which you are curtailing the liberty of an individual should not be based on a UN resolution.’’
The development deepens already strong doubts about Pakistan’s latest anti-terror pledge and can adversely impact its efforts to seek resumption of the composite dialogue with India.
Foreign secretaries of the two nations were to meet later in the evening on Tuesday in Sharm-al Sheikh, Egypt and the two PMs on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the 36-page dossier handed over to India by Pakistan on Saturday is replete with tell-tale signs of Islamabad’s reluctance to bring 26/11 masterminds to book — a condition laid down by India for the revival of the composite dialogue.
–Agencies–