Hafiz Saeed Files Petition to Challenge Ban on His Social Welfare Activities

Lahore: Mumbai attack mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed on Thursday filed a petition in the Lahore High Court, challenging a notification of the interior ministry of Pakistan to ban his social welfare activities.

Saeed filed the petition through his counsel Advocate A K Dogar. He submitted to the LHC that the interior ministry on February 10 issued a notification with regard to freezing bank accounts and taking over assets associated with the Jamaat-ud-Dawah and Falah-i-Insaaniyat Foundation under the Anti-Terrorism (amendment) Ordinance 2018.

"The government of Pakistan acted under the pressure of foreign powers, including UN and India," he said and contended that Pakistan is a sovereign independent state and makes its own laws to govern its citizens.

"If there is a conflict between the laws of the land and any provision of United Nations Security Counsel Act, 1948, the law of the land shall prevail," he said.

The founder of Lashkara-e-Taiba further said the FIF owns 369 ambulances, helped 72,000 persons to charity hospitals and treated 600,000 patients only in 2017.

"JuD dug out 2000 wells for supplying water in Tharparkar, Baluchistan and Balochistan."

He pleaded the court to declare the impugned notification of the interior ministry null and void with regard to taking over the assets of the organisations.

Separately, Saeed last week challenged the presidential ordinance under which his group has been banned for being on the watch-list of the United Nations in the Islamabad High Court.

President Mamnoon Hussain last month promulgated an ordinance amending the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 with regards to proscription of terrorist individuals and organisations to include entities listed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in a move to declare Hafiz Saeed-linked JuD and Falah-i-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF) as proscribed groups.

Saeed, who is accused of having masterminded the November 2008 Mumbai attack, was placed on the terrorism black list by the United Nations in December 2008.

The banned Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) head was released from the house arrest in November last year after the Pakistan government decided against detaining him further in any other case. He was under house arrest since January last year.