
Pakistani authorities on Tuesday resubmitted to the Supreme Court two petitions challenging the release from house arrest of JuD chief Hafiz Mohd Saeed, a key accused in the Mumbai attacks, after removing the "technical flaws" due to which the pleas were rejected earlier.
Deputy Attorney General Shah Khawar filed one petition on behalf of the federal government while Advocate General Raza Farooq submitted the second for the Punjab government. The petitions were resubmitted after removing the technical flaws pointed out by the apex court on Monday.
The fresh petitions challenge the release of Saeed and his close aides Col (retd) Nazir Ahmed, Amir Hamza and Mufti Abdur Rehman from house arrest. Saeed and Ahmed were released on the orders of the Lahore High Court on June 2 while Hamza and Rehman were freed by a judicial review board a month earlier. The original petitions filed by the federal and Punjab governments were rejected by the office of the Supreme Court registrar as they challenged only the release of Saeed and Ahmed. The office of the registrar said Hamza and Rehman -- who were originally party to the matter -- should also be included in the petitions.
Deputy Attorney General Shah Khawar said the federal government was "not satisfied with the judgement of the High Court" that freed Saeed as the relevant law regulating preventive detention was not "properly appreciated." "Another important ground is that the resolution of the United Nations Security Council (declaring the JuD a terrorist organisation) has not been properly interpreted and we believe that was also a sufficient ground for the detention," he told reporters.
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