Petition submitted to quash FIRs against JuD chief Hafiz Saeed

LAHORE: A petition was submitted in the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday for quashing FIRs against Mumbai terror attack mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed and 65 others.

The high court is set to hear the petition submitted by a top JuD leader, Malik Zafar Iqbal, on Thursday). The federal government, Punjab government and the regional headquarter of the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) have been made party in the petition, Dawn news reported.

According to the petition submitted by Iqbal, who is also named in the police reports, the FIRs registered were "without lawful authority and of no legal effect".

It stated that the property under question was for a mosque and was being used for this purpose.

Therefore, the 23 FIRs listed were "without lawful authority".

It added that the property "is not and has not ever been used for terror financing as there is no tangible evidence on record to support such bold allegations".

The petition also said that the FIRs describing the petitioner as the head of the proscribed militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) were "factually and legally incorrect".

It asked that the court declare that none of the petitioners and Pro-forma respondents were linked with LeT and therefore, FIRS were without "lawful authority and of no legal effect".

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, Dawn reported.

The CTD, which registered the cases in five cities of Punjab, declared that the JuD was financing terrorism from the massive funds collected through non-profit organisations and trusts.

These non-profit organisations were banned in April as the CTD during detailed investigations found that they had links with the JuD and its top leadership, accused of financing terrorism by building huge assets/properties from the collected funds in Pakistan.

On July 17, Saeed was arrested in connection with a terrorism financing case while on his way from Lahore to Gujranwala.