LAHORE: Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi of the Lahore High Court on Tuesday postponed till September 19 hearing of a petition filed by Jamatud Dawa (Jud) chief Hafiz Saeed and his aides Prof Malik Zafar Iqbal, Abdur Rehman Abid, Qazi Kashif Hussain and Abdullah Ubaid against their detention.
The judge deferred the hearing as the petitioners sought more time to go through the Home Department’s report.
On September 7, the court had directed to Punjab Home secretary to hear the petitioners representation against their detention.
On Tuesday, the Punjab Home Department submitted a report, stating that the petitioners’ representation had been rejected. The report stated that the additional home secretary had personally heard the representatives of Counter Terrorism Department, other law enforcement agencies and the JuD leaders before dismissing the representation.
“A number of cases have been registered against Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF). The detainees also launched a political party, which has still not been registered with the Election Commission of Pakistan,” the report said.
It stated that Hafiz Saeed and other leaders of the organization had been detained to stop them from collection of illegal funds for organisations. The report stated that the organisations had carried out illegal collection of funds/charity as 23 criminal cases had been recently registered against the FIF.
The Home Department report stated that the detainees had fielded a candidate for by-polls of NA-120. The report stated that all the law enforcement agencies strongly had recommended keeping the JuD leader under in detention in the larger public interest.
The report claimed that activities of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, if released, would be of great threat to the public safety and cause breach of public order.
Petitioners’ counsel AK Dogar submitted that the Punjab government on July 28 had ordered the petitioners’ detention for 60 days under Section 1 of section 3 of Maintenance of Public order, 1960,” it said.
He said that there was no evidence whatsoever that the petitioners were planning to spread chaos in country or that they had planned violent demonstrations.
He submitted that the government in the impugned detention orders had only shown apprehension against the petitioners and under the law no presumption and assumption could give rise to any apprehension unless it was supported by some piece of evidence. He said that an order of preventive detention had to satisfy the requirements laid down by the Supreme Court.
He said that the government had detained the petitioners to please India and US. He said imprisonment without trial and conviction was prima facie unlawful and unconstitutional.
He submitted that the petitioner had filed a departmental representation against the detention before the home secretary on August 3 but it had not yet been decided. He requested to set aside the impugned detention orders by declaring it as issued without lawful authority and of no legal effect.
Published in Daily Times, September 13th 2017.
